


Forward Etheria

by Noble_Thought



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Adventure, Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M, Multi, Outer Space, Post-Canon, Rivalry, Romance, Slice of Life, mostly canon-compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:54:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24549484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noble_Thought/pseuds/Noble_Thought
Summary: Danger awaits in the stars beyond Etheria's skies, and danger brews at home while the starship Hope of Etheria, Horde Prime's former flagship transformed into a hybrid of living magic and technology by the Heart of Etheria's power, makes its maiden voyage to rescue another world with a dying Heart.Hope grows along with the bonds between friends new and old. Hope may be the only thing that saves them in the end.Currently on Hiatus (Author brainfart)
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra), Kyle/Lonnie/Rogelio (She-Ra), Perfuma/Scorpia (She-Ra)
Comments: 38
Kudos: 62





	1. Eternal

“Oh mighty First, the Eternal Ones, grant us your wisdom. Grant us the knowledge. Grant us the magic. Grant us food. Grant us life. Never let us run out of time. For the Honor of Grayskull, we live.” 

The prayer echoed through the crystalline chamber, the marks of the Eternal Ones glowing in response to the words, spreading out from the central pillar of glowing white to the silver lines on the floor, flowing out to the seven silver daises the seven Priests of the Eternals prayed, heads bowed and hands clasping the worn silver prayer offerings.

Seala waited, her hands pressed to the worn floor in the gesture of supplication, elbows out, fingertips together, forehead resting on her two middle fingers.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the other Acolytes of the Holy Pairs studying their hands, hands that worked with the keys and the tools of the Holy Re, performing the rites that pleased the Eternal Ones.

It was a time of contemplation, the morning renewal, a time to reflect on the rites they would need to do that day, and the order they needed to do them. Doing them out of order displeased the Eternal Ones, and when they were displeased…

The glow faded as it always did, sliding back into the central pillar that was the home of the People of the Hall, the chosen of the Eternals.

As it did, the seven raised their heads, and the Holy Pairs sat back on their knees.

“Today,” said the High Seer, a man who had no other name, had given it to his children to wear when he ascended, “marks eighteen hundred years since the Eternals waged their war with the Devils of the Sky, and broke time to keep us safe for eternity. Today, we offer praise most high with the ritual of Inspection, to determine the needs of the Eternals as they continue their war in heaven.”

Seala’s fingers twitched, already starting to go through the motions of performing the rites of Inspection, touching the seals, feeling for the draft, noting the duration and strength of the draft, the whispers of the Eternals telling her how much sealant she would need to use.

Her partner, her love, Welda, would take care of the rents in the metal of the Hall, the places where the invisible Demons tried to work their way in, and Seala could see him contemplating what thread he would need to bring, what setting on his torch he would need to use for each kind of thread.

“The Holy Pairs have always been a crucial part of pleasing the Eternals, I don’t need to remind you, no less important than the High Gears, but today is also an important day.” The High Seer laid his hands on the dais, gripping it firmly, his rheumy blue eyes sweeping them with a severe promise. “The Century Inspection. I was here for the last. It was nearly my last. It was nearly _The Last_. The last day, my children. All because _one_ step was done out of order. All because one Bolt was not tightened in the right order.”

Seala knew this story. Her mother had told it to her during bedtime to scare her. She was destined to be one of the Holy Pairs by the sign she’d been born under. She needed to be perfect in every step. It was what she trained for every day of her life. Knowing which viscosity was right for which seal, which seal was required for which kind of breath. Hot or cold. Wet or dry. 

“We lost the Westergate and nearly two hundred souls to the Sky Demons.”

Seala flinched. Two hundred souls. Two hundred names that still hadn’t been filled. Two hundred fewer mouths to feed. Four hundred fewer hands to use the tools.

“And the great Westergate Chapel is still unreclaimed. We push, but the Sky Demons rend asunder any of the Holy Magi who come too close. The Great Cache is lost to us.”

Fear thrummed through her again. The Great Cache. The tools of the Eternals themselves. Lost to the Sky Demons. Forever.

“This Century Inspection will be different. This time, we will not falter. We _will_ give our greatest aid to the Eternals. We _will_ reclaim the Great Cache. We _will_ reclaim the lost Westergate.” With each sentence, the High Seer slapped his palm against the surface of his dais, a sharp thundercrack that sounded and echoed throughout the Chamber of the Chapel. 

“Today. You. My children,” he continued in a harsh whisper, “will prove your ancestors, your name mothers and fathers, proud. Each of you. Will. Not. Fail.”

* * *

_“Goodbye.”_

Seala jumped, her sealant tubes rattling as she stared about the blank corridor, one of the side-passages that made up the Great Hall, connecting room to room and floor to floor inside the complex.

“What is it, Seala?” Welda asked, stopping with his hand hovering over the entry pad to the next chamber.

“I heard something. A _whisper_ , I think.”

“Here?” Welda’s eyes darted from her to the walls, to the seams covered in hundreds of years of welds and crossworks of patches, bulges where the stone of the Gray Mount tried to invade their space, tried to leach in the poison of the Sky Demons. “Eternals protect us. This is nearly the Heart, Seala.”

“Help me find it.”

“Seala, we’re—”

“If it’s a whisper, here, then… that could be the end, Welda. Not just of…” Seala shook her head and started unburdening herself, drawing out the rope and smoke-oil she used to find the whispers.

“The High Seer wants us…” Welda protested even as he started unbinding his threads and his flameless fire. “Just be quick about it.”

Just a dip. The rope and the oil were sacred and rare, only used for this purpose. She clipped it off and set it in the burner, cranking it until only the oiled part of the wick was above the metal rollers, and a quick strike set the smoke simmering off it in thin ropy strands, attracted by her breath and, more importantly, the whispers.

“Hold still,” Seala murmured as Welda pulled out tally string and began knotting their location, leaving only the end untied for the precise place they found it in the tunnel.

Welda held his breath as Seala crisscrossed the walls and ceilings with her censor, waving the smoke in a prescribed pattern that was always the same in the still corridors of the Great Hall. It was the one thing that let them find the whispers.

_“Be brave.”_

Seala shuddered. “You heard that?”

Welda shook his head slowly.

She kept up the pattern, searching for the source of that whisper, the feeling of wind against her cheek almost like speech.

_“Goodbye.”_

Seala spun around, censor raised high to where the voice had come from, louder, more distinct. A woman’s voice, the words unrecognizable to her ear, but clearly speech. “Hello!”

“I don’t… Seala? What’s wrong?” 

Seala shook her head sharply, her amber hair stirring the air and causing all the smoke lines she’d so carefully laid out to dissipate.

Invisible form captured the smoke, swirling around it and giving shape to the shapeless. A further blow of smoke from the cloud around her censor gave it more, the pallid cloud rising and stroking along five slender…

Seala froze as the smoke billowed against the ceiling, no longer the craggy shape of the familiar welds and seals and plates bolted into place.

A face of white smoke, invisible as the curls passed the features, and an arm reaching down toward her.

The lips moved. 

_“Be brave!”_

Seala screamed.


	2. Preparations

Catra stared up at the blinking running lights of the _Hope of Etheria_ , the giant floating tree, or forest, or… whatever Perfuma had said it was.

It was going to take her away from here, her and Adora and some of their friends. From the only place she found familiar and comforting. From the streets she’d grown up on, the now ruined city that had taken her in and given her more purpose than ‘find the next scrap to eat.’ Away from the place she’d found her first friend, her first love, her first lover. 

All three the same person.

It didn’t matter that Adora was coming with them. This had been the only _place_ she’d known. The only one she’d come to care for. But it wasn’t home.

Home was chasing her.

“You’re slow!” Catra called out, grinning despite the morose thoughts. Home was coming to catch her after she’d already crossed the finish line.

A grunt sounded below and behind her and strong fingers caught at the ledge of the former Fright Zone launch pad conning tower.

Catra caught the other one as it came up and sunk her claws into the concrete for support and hauled Adora up to join her. “I win again.”

“You always win,” Adora grumbled, plopping herself down and kissing the back of the hand she’d captured. 

Rather than talk, ask her what was on her mind, Adora settled in as well to stare up at the ship drifting across the sky. She was in the same place Catra was, uncertain about where _Hope_ would take them.

As they watched, the _Hope’s_ main drive blazed to brilliant blue life, a pre-planned maneuver to bring her… whatsits, things that Entrapta had gone on at length about. Apo and peri somethings. One needed to be higher and the other lower. Something about gravity.

The main point was that the ship would be moving faster, ready to burn out to a safe distance from Etheria. Ready to take on the last cargo.

Them.

Then… a month of travel to a place none of them had ever heard of, to a long-forgotten Heart Entrapta had found using the remnants of the Horde’s sensor networks, broken, scattered and full of garbage as they were immediately following the destruction of the interstellar neural network.

Catra squeezed Adora’s hand lightly, then let it go, settling hers atop, grinning.

Only a moment passed before the hand was gone, then back, stroking the light coating of fur on the back of her hand. Then Catra was on top again. Adora, Catra, Adora.

An old game of theirs. Comforting, and without the fierce competitive edge as before. Catra knew those fingers far more intimately now, and Adora knew hers.

It was almost like old times again, the two of them racing around the Fright Zone, pretending their teasing, regulation exact ‘romance’ was training exercises. Looking back, Catra could see them for what they were. More than just bonding. She’d wanted Adora to catch her at least once in the heat of the race, to grab hold of her and break regulation.

But Adora never would, and Catra had been too proud to slow down just a little and let her.

Now… 

Catra let her hand stay under Adora’s on the final pass, only tipping her thumb up to rub the back of Adora’s hand.

“What do you think we’ll find out there?” Adora asked, her voice wondering. “I mean… other than worlds devastated by Horde Prime.” She winced and grumbled, sliding forward to lay down on her back, staring up, then to the side at Catra looking down at her. “And boredom.”

“I don’t remember space being all that boring,” Catra teased, flicking a finger against Adora’s nose.

“That’s because everything was breaking down every five minutes and we were always just about to die.” Adora poked her in the side. “Surely you didn’t forget _that_ part?”

“‘Course not. Ooh, and let’s not forget the hallway that tried to eat us.”

“Melog.” Adora poked her bicep. 

The magic creature, they were still arguing over whether it was more dog or cat, male or female or other—Melog wouldn't answer definitively, and didn't seem to actually understand the question—was staying aboard ship for now, security and comfort. Melog was still healing from a wound sustained during the last moments of battle with Horde Prime’s bots and clones and the searing fire of the Heart itself. A lucky hit through the fire, empowered by it.

At least, that’s what they figured had happened. Melog had hidden it from them until almost too late. Now… she, and Catra would win the argument, was recovering.

“Ooh! Or the corridor that went on forever.”

“Melog.” Higher still, her shoulder, sliding up to her collarbone.

“ _Or_ the giant monster that almost _ate_ me.”

“Also Melog.” Adora pushed herself up and poked Catra lightly on the chin, then captured it and drew her in for a brief kiss, firm, warm lips and a brief taste of teeth. “Honestly, Catra, Krytis was probably the least dangerous place we visited.”

“Mmm. That’s true.” Catra stared into those blue eyes she knew so well and licked her nose. Just a little flick. “That was kinda boring once you take away the fear, confusion, and Wrong Hordak tearing up the airwaves.”

“Oh, come on, that was hilarious.” Adora sat up further and kissed her chin, then cocked her head. “In retrospect.”

“Most things are funny in retrospect, I think,” Catra murmured, tipping her head the other way, letting her voice grow sultry as a purr started low in her throat, lips parting as Adora leaned in closer, then ducking and blowing a raspberry against her lover’s throat.

Adora squealed and rolled away, laughing and catching herself just at the edge, her sense of balance keeping her from falling over. This was an old game for them, familiar territory, with an extra edge of… not danger.

No… that wasn’t danger in Adora’s eyes. Far from it. A promise, a smirk, all Adora, all beautiful blue eyes and blonde hair, strong jaw, soft lips.

And just as Adora was about to pounce, just as Catra was about to leap away and continue the chase to somewhere more private, the familiar tinkle-twinkle of Glimmer’s teleports, and Glimmer was there, rubbing her forehead and glancing between them.

“Glimmer, damnit,” Adora said with a sigh, dropping back to sit, her fingers gripping the edge of the conning tower’s roof. “You have the _worst_ timing.”

“Oh, come on, you two can chase each other on the ship. Plenty of room.” Glimmer made a pft sound and waved her hand, dismissing it. “We’ve got preparations to do.”

“What _kind_ of preparations? We’re not logistics, Glimmer.” Catra jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the ruins of the Fright Zone. “Adora and I have been doing cleanup and recovery here. I _just_ found the only working Fright Zone Fabricator today. I can stop borrowing… whatever clothes the villagers have.”

“You look good in robes,” Adora murmured, a flush creeping up her cheeks and a cheeky grin growing.

_You like watching me climb trees in robes._ “I do not. They get in the way of everything.”

Adora cocked her head side-to-side, grinning so wide Catra wanted to throw a rock at her.

“Yes, but we leave tomorrow. Morning. It’s evening!” Glimmer spun and jabbed a finger at the Prime shuttle waiting on the landing pad, its landing lights blinking amber against green, its long, sleek shape dangerous-looking in the gloom, a silverfish in the river. “You two need to double-check and make sure you have everything you need, because we are _not_ turning the _Hope_ around halfway to the _only_ other Heart we’ve discovered.”

Adora flinched and nodded, pursing her lips and glancing at Catra.

Tomorrow.

She closed her eyes and thought of… everything. The only things she would be leaving behind were her mistakes, and even most of those would come with her. Everything else was already packed in the shuttle. Even the disassembled bits of the fabricator.

“I don’t have anything else,” Catra said finally, sagging back. “We never owned anything in the Horde, Sparkles. Not even our clothes. I’m just lucky there was an unbroken clothes fabricator still in the Fright Zone.”

Glimmer pursed her lips, tapping her foot, and glanced at Adora. “You?”

Adora pointed at Catra. “I got some new clothes printed, too.” She plucked at the blazer she always wore, the blazer of a force captain, hiding the form-fitting two-piece and that gorgeous physique. Maybe Catra could convince her to lay off it. In private at least. “I never really owned much, either, even after I joined the rebellion. Habit, really. Just a few mementos I have packed already.”

Glimmer’s pursed lips started to resemble a line as she stared between them, brows coming together before she deflated. “Fine. Fine.”

“Everyone was in the same boat in the Fright Zone,” Catra said. “From force captains down, there was a uniform. Mostly. Shadow Weaver had her favorites, but there was a uniform.” She jerked her thumb at Adora. “She’s wearing part of it.”

“You never wore a jacket.”

_Because I wasn’t…_ Catra glanced at Adora, saw her love smiling faintly, and relaxed. “We’re fine, Glimmer. We won’t be leaving anything behind but people.”

“And we have a working comm node. We’ll be fine,” Adora said with a pft and a wave of her hand.

“As long as we keep Entrapta away from it.”

“ _Fine!_ ” Glimmer teleported away, and Adora held up three fingers, grinning as she started counting down. Just as Adora folded the last finger, Glimmer was back. “But I’m not fine.”

“Yeah. Kinda figured that out, Sparkles.”

Adora shot her a warning look and stood up to pat Glimmer on the back. “What’s wrong?”

“I-I’ve never… _intentionally_ left home before.” Glimmer didn’t _quite_ look at Catra, but the tension was there, just a hint of a flicker of a glance at her. “I mean… Etheria.”

“Well, you _couldn’t_.” Catra jabbed a finger at the sky, now full of stars instead of the glowing ethereal shell. “None of us could.” She glanced at Adora, thinking of the talks they’d had in the past months, worried that Prime might come back, somehow, from a backup, might again descend on their world from reaches unknown.

Talk of home and family. Or lack of it. For both of them.

“We were each other’s home,” Adora said finally, nodding to Catra. “Do you… understand why I worked so hard to get her to come with me? She was my home, and I had to leave her.”

Catra snorted, her heart skipping a beat. “And my home ran away… and I chased after it. The only chase I lost.”

Adora flicked a speck of a pebble at her, opened her mouth, glanced at Glimmer, and closed it again, looking away from both of them, pensive and withdrawing. “What we’re saying is… it’s hard, Glimmer. To leave your home. No matter what form that home takes.”

“It is,” Catra murmured, reaching up and tugging on Glimmer’s hand. “But you’re taking some of it with you, right?”

“Yeah, I—”

“I mean, with all those suitcases I saw piled up, I almost expected to see Brightmoon rebuilt in suitcase form.” Oh that look in her eye, the twitch, the glower. It was so easy to distract her.

Glimmer closed her eyes and tapped her fingers against her thigh. When she finished counting, she asked, “Adora, can I drop your girlfriend off the tower?”

“No, Glimmer,” Adora said flatly. “We don’t do that.”

“Fiiine.” 

In the next instant, Catra found herself in Adora’s lap, post-teleport nausea flaring up, roiling up her throat until she scrambled for the edge, tail bushed out.

“I’ll just drop her in your lap.”

Adora held her gently and sighed. “You earned that one, wildcat.”

“I—” _Hrk_. “—know.” _Worth it._

“So…” Glimmer coughed and waited, and when Catra finally gained control of her stomach again, thankfully not _actually_ vomiting anything up, she was seated where Catra had been. “I’m… hoping for some advice.”

Catra settled on the ground between Adora’s legs and leaned against her, snuggling in close enough so she could feel the heat her motions inspired in her lover’s cheeks, a purr starting, light and hopeful that they might still find some privacy before sleep. “Find something to distract yourself. Like I just did.”

Glimmer raised a brow, glancing to the side, and coughed. “Um. Sorry? And… any advice?” 

“Accepted.” Catra flicked a finger at her, grinning. “Maybe don’t try to blow up Etheria because you miss your home.”

“Cat, we’ve talked about that,” Adora whispered in her ear.

“Fine. Fine.” Catra rolled her eyes. “I didn’t _try_ to blow it up. I was… convinced it would work. You know. That you were all lying to me.” Catra shrugged and settled in, pulling back from her few memories of that time, the anger and hatred, the madness settling in as she stared into the void, the promise of the unknown that was better than what she had right then. She shivered and hunched forward. “It… wasn’t exactly a good time for me.”

The war might have ended then. That was her reasoning. Faulty as it was. If it was over, then she didn’t have to…

Adora’s strong arms wrapped around her, and warm breath kissed her cheek just before Adora’s lips did. “You’re here, now, Catra. And…” 

And it was… fine. The past was behind them. They could deal with it whenever. Catra glanced at Glimmer, expecting to find an accusation there, but not seeing much of anything. Blank face, the same mask that she always wore when someone brought up the Portal, brought up anything close to Queen Angella’s fall.

Catra wasn’t _solely_ responsible for Angella’s fall. She knew that. She _knew_ it. Hordak and Entrapta had made the machine, made it faulty, used faulty data. It _had_ opened to somewhere, to a time vortex that had nearly torn the planet apart. Perhaps a black hole’s heart, or a white hole’s mouth. Somewhere time didn’t play by the same rules as everywhere else.

“And,” Glimmer finished for Adora, “you’re part of the team. You have a place with us. A home. Maybe that’s what I need. A perspective shift, you know.”

“Yeah…” Adora grimaced and leaned to the side to meet Catra’s eyes. “You say that like it’s easy. Remember how much trouble I had sleeping when I first got to Brightmoon?”

“You have trouble sleeping now,” Catra whispered, her purring deepening into a laugh as Adora’s cheeks heated.

“I get that,” Glimmer growled, completely missing the interplay. “I’m _trying_ to be optimistic here, and there you are being all realistic. Both of you.” She jabbed a finger at Catra. “Especially you. It’s weird.”

“Hey! I’ve always been a realist.” Catra patted her chest. “It’s what got me in trouble. The horde was winning, and I… wanted my home to be on the winning side.”

Glimmer deflated, slumping against one of the antenna arrays. “Yeah. I get that. I didn’t want _my_ home to be on the losing side, either. So… I made our side the winning side. And then we lost.”

“And then we won!” Adora proclaimed, pumping a fist in the air. “Realists for the win. Woo!”

Glimmer huffed and shook her head, slumping forward. “How do you make it look so easy?”

“What?”

“Just being… so at ease.” Glimmer waved a hand at them. “You’ve both always been at ease waiting.”

“Training,” Adora said, raising her head to brush her nose along Catra’s ear, a different kind of heat in her cheeks, in her breath. “Lots of training. For missions. It was hammered into us over and over that we never knew what the next mission would bring. Whether we would come back. But… we had to.”

“Why?” Glimmer glanced at them, her eyes sliding off the display of affection like it wasn’t even there. She could be so blind. All for the better.

“Because it was our homes at stake,” Catra said, tilting her head right, letting Adora rest her cheek against her neck as a purr grew lower, deeper in her chest, rumbling against Adora’s.

“It…” Glimmer surveyed the concrete and steel ruin around them, slowly returning to almost streets, almost buildings. Almost a place where the thousands of displaced Fright Zone citizens could return to, search for the broken pieces of their lives. There had been families there, small, impoverished, and often broken by the war. Only the warfighters got special treatment.

It was the way of Hordak. Old Hordak. Reformed Hordak… was hiding on the ship. Nobody on Etheria wanted his help rebuilding the Fright Zone.

But they’d only been children when the indoctrination started. When the abuse had started. When Adora had been given to Shadow Weaver

“It was a home for…” Glimmer trailed off, thoughtful as she looked off into the distance behind them. “For a lot of people that didn’t know any better.”

“Yeah.” Catra looked away. “But… don’t dwell on it. Frosta, Spinny, and Netossa are gonna help things get back on track here while we’re gone.”

“I know.” Glimmer flopped on her back and pointed up at the starship now starting to drift off towards the horizon at a rapid clip, it only visible as a thin stripe of stars winking on and off steadily now, it’s orbital change burn completed. “That’s our home starting tomorrow.”

“Speak for yourself,” Adora murmured, raising her head again to bite at the back of Catra’s ear, drawing the purrs deeper.

“My home is right here,” Catra finished.

* * *

Passion faded, the heat and heady musk in their tent filling Adora’s nose with the intoxicating smell of her lover, taking it even deeper within her as Catra shifted and Adora buried her mouth and nose into the offered shoulder, breathing deep, huffing as one last wave passed through her, before fingers withdrew, before the need for privacy was less urgent, before she slumped and slipped to lie with her head cradled on Catra’s shoulder.

“I love you,” she whispered, her breath catching as one last aftershock sent a rippling chill up her spine, shuddering her deeper into her lover’s warm, fuzzy embrace.

“I love you,” Catra whispered in return, brushing her fingers up Adora’s naked hip to her breast, bringing a fresh shiver as the barest tip of a claw brushed over her skin. “I win tonight?”

Adora laughed softly and bit the side of Catra’s neck.

“That’s a no, then?”

“It’s not a yes.” There was comfort in the game, the light dominance struggle before bed. Catra never wanted to lose… and neither did Adora. But they hadn’t yet figured out what winning and losing meant. For now… it was a play on what they’d had for years. Comfortable. Familiar. Safe. 

“Such a brat.” The hand on her breast clenched softly, rolling slowly back and forth, stirring Adora’s heart again, warming her desire. “And now?”

“Mmm. Closer.” Adora shifted away, drawing Catra’s hand, making her follow Adora. 

A trap that Catra saw coming from a mile away, smirked, and nipped at her bare shoulder with sharp teeth. “Nice try, but…” Fingers shifted from breast to sternum, stroking slowly down to her navel, swirling slowly “I win.”

Adora shivered and huffed out a long breath, a shudder rising up to her shoulders. “Fine… you win. For now.” She could win if she wanted to, use one of Catra’s weaknesses to subdue her, draw her down for sleep.

“Mmm. You okay?” Catra murmured, drawing her hand back up to rest on Adora’s neck.

“Yeah. Just…” Adora drew her hand up and kissed it, then held it between them. “Thinking today. About leaving.”

“We’ll be okay.” Catra’s eyes, those beautiful eyes, gold and blue together, heart-skippingly captivating, shimmered in the dim light.

“But… are we really okay? Like…”

Catra stiffened. “We’re fine. We have each other.” She blinked rapidly but didn’t look away. “As long as we have that—”

“We do.” Adora pushed herself up on one elbow and played her fingers down the side of Catra’s neck to her shoulder, stopping briefly to grip her bicep. “I mean, leaving. All we’ve known is Etheria.”

“Me, at least.” Catra glanced away, biting her lip, then glancing back at her and away again. “You? You’re a foundling from another world, lover,” she said, her purr rolling the _r_ and really making it hers. “You still don’t remember anything?”

It was a diversion. Catra didn’t want to talk about it. They had months… years to talk about the future. They didn’t need to worry about it right then. She didn’t need to. _Do I?_

“No.” Adora drew those beautiful eyes back to her with a gentle touch on her chin, a kiss on her lips. “Not even with Shadow Weaver’s notes. Not even with what remains of Hordak’s readings.” The were the basis for what Hordak had used to target his portal. The readings he’d taken when Adora had appeared during an attempt to create a portal—a portal he’d only been able to create through Light Hope’s intervention—reading a spike in both temporal and spatial magics, the signature of First Ones’ technology.

He hadn’t known it at the time. He’d been blind to magic, believing it only an aberration of technology. Just like all of the other Horde Prime Clones had believed.

“Hordak was an idiot to use that data, you know.”

“Heh. Yeah.” The revelation that she was a First One, and he was looking for a way to use First One tech, he’d gone scouring for everything he could find, and the readings from the day she’d arrived had been the core of his targeting for the portal. “I really don’t remember anything. I barely remember much before I met you.”

“Heh. Not surprising. We were… what? Both four?” Catra chuckled. “I can’t believe they sent you out on patrol that early.”

“To _watch_ ,” Adora huffed. “I never did figure out why you approached _me_ when you ran from the guards.”

Catra was silent for a moment, her blue and gold eyes flicking back and forth, then closing, her lips pursed. “Blue eyes. That’s really all I can remember.”

“You ran at me because I had blue eyes.” Adora grinned and pushed herself up higher, opening her eyes wide, fighting off the giggles, but unable to stop the crazy grin that came with that look.

“Maybe, I‘unno. I was _four_.” Catra poked her in the ribs. “And stop that. You look creepy.”

Adora burst out laughing, and collapsed, half on top of her. Warm, short fur and soft breast against her cheek as she curled up and pulled her close. “My pillow.”

“H-hey! I didn’t concede!” But her actions spoke otherwise, her fingers brushing through Adora’s hair, down to her ear, then back to the crown of her head. 

It was tempting to tease her further, but it was already too late, and further teasing would invite reprisals, would invite counter-reprisals, would keep them up until morning when the shuttle was supposed to finally take the last of the crew up and the last collection of goods, and the the final few magical fuel crystals they needed to keep the massive starship moving, far different from the hybrid fusion torch power source and hyperspatial warp drive that the Prime ships used.

The shuttle run needed to leave on time.

“Truce?” Adora whispered.

“As long as you don’t sleep on my tit,” Catra growled. “Then truce.”

* * *

Glimmer read the same paragraph again.

> The source of magic we found was incredibly unstable, fluctuating and pulsing, making the entire star system shiver. We don’t have enough readings yet to make a determination, but it’s my theory backed up by the math that this is a dormant heart in distress. Maybe even one that went through the same plundering process the Etherian Heart went through

A dead world with a heart. They had no other information, no other idea of what they would face. Even with a ship as powerful as the _Hope_ , with as much technology as they had, as much magic as they had, strength and knowhow…

She tapped her fingers on the desk, reading it again. Glancing at the telescope image of the star it orbited on the fritzing horde computer screen. A short clip that showed a star in fluctuation, a quarter of it blazing out energy like a thousand years had passed in an instant, then dimming, dying down again.

Not even Horde Prime could do that. Not without magic.

That it was a First One’s world seemed obvious, a world where things had gone horribly, terribly wrong. Whether it was because of the increasingly clear atrocities of the First Ones or the worse violations of the Prime Empire.

“Glimmer?” Bow’s voice outside her door, his shadow under the doorframe.

“Yes, Bow?” Glimmer looked up from her desk and rubbed at her eyes and turned off the monitor a moment later. The notes. She glanced at them, touched them, and flipped them over. She could go over them with Entrapta tomorrow. Once they were aboard the _Hope_. 

Not in this repurposed trash heap of an office at the spaceport. The walls rusted and crumbling, pipes exposed, leaking slime. The water didn’t work. The toilets were broken. But the computer system worked. The desk didn’t have sharp edges.

It wasn’t Brightmoon… but she couldn’t be there. Not with the statue of her mother staring at her. Dead stone to replace a living figure.

This was better. Close to where she needed to be, where she would be in the morning. She didn’t have to worry about travel. Everyone else had pitched tents out on the tarmac, colorful gay tents reminiscent of the old Rebellion forces tents when the Princesses marched.

“You, uh…” Bow knocked again. “You wanna unlock the door?”

“Yeah. Just…” Glimmer rubbed at temples. Peace was supposed to be peaceful. “Just give me a moment.” Nobody had said anything about all the grief piling back on after the terror was over.

She tried to teleport over, but her magic fizzled, her vision dimmed, and her headache started up again. She’d spent all day throwing magic at crates to get them on the shuttle, loading them into place because the repurposed horde loader bots were glitching out after such a heavy load over so many months of heavy use.

“Fine!” She shot up, her chair toppling over, and stomped over to unlock the door manually. “It’s unlocked, just show yourself in.” She stomped back to her desk, glared at her chair, and kicked it. “Agh!”

“Glim, you need to calm down.”

“That wasn’t a frustrated scream,” Glimmer growled, holding her foot off the ground as her frustration made manifest shuddered up her leg, throbbing and driving her headache up worse. “That was pain.”

“Uh Huh. Sure. How long were you planning on staying up?” Bow leaned against her desk, arms crossed as he watched her right her chair and sit back down. “It’s after midnight.”

“I’m reviewing Entrapta’s readings again,” Glimmer grumbled, tapping the papers. “We need to know what we’re going to face out there.”

“Yeah… and we have her along for a reason. If there was _anything_ you discovered tonight, we couldn’t do anything about it _tonight_ , Glimmer.” Bow pulled the papers away gently and trapped her hand against the desk when she reached for them. “Glim, please. You’ve been going at it full speed for a month.”

“Because I’m the leader!” He didn’t know the sleepless nights her mother had gone through. She hadn’t, either, until she’d started reading her memoirs. Hundreds of books. An entire library she was bringing with her. Her mother, her advice, and history. “I need to be on top of things.”

If there was one thing she knew about her mother and her ageless thousand year rule, it was that Angella had never given up. It was there in the pages, in between the mundanities of immortality, of a dozen marriages to mortal beings, of children she’d seen found their own tribes and leave, and pass on, leaving her behind.

Even through grief after grief, Angella had never given up on love, never barred it from her heart.

_What?_ Glimer tried to track down how her thoughts had gotten there. Sleep had been where she started. _What does love have to do with sleep?_

Bow’s hand tightened on hers. “And a leader needs to know when it’s time to sleep.” 

_Oh._

“What… ugh… alright. Maybe I do need to sleep.” The admission unpinned the weight of all of it, and the headache growing behind her eyes intensified, threatening to slam her eyelids down no matter what she did. “Carry me?”

Bow rolled his eyes. “Fine…”

A few minutes later, they wandered through the tent village, some of the lights still on, two of the three moons throwing off glows that cast purple and pinkish shadows in addition to the yellowish horde lighting of the tarmac.

Interestingly, Catra and Adora’s tent light was on. Low, but on, and Glimmer could hear quiet voices from inside. They’d been growing closer over the last few months, and even though there wasn’t much anyone knew about what had happened in the Heart. All she’d gathered was that it’d been traumatic, and neither one wanted to talk about it.

Catra had saved Adora.

That’s what mattered. That Adora was in love with Catra, and the reverse, had been obvious for months before then, to Glimmer at least. Except, seemingly, for the two of them.

“Bow…”

“Yeah?”

“Catra’s a good person, right?”

Bow was silent for a long moment, then tipped his head back against hers. “Yeah. She’s a good person. Now.”

“Good.” Glimmer’s head dropped to his shoulder. “Good.”

_Why is that so hard for me to accept?_

The thought followed her down into her cot, into darkness and dreamless void.


	3. The Hope

“Hope Shuttle One, clearance to dock granted,” the cool voice over the radio said.

Catra hissed, her tail bushing out. “That’s the ship computer. You put the ship computer back in charge?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Entrapta called over the open comm link. “Gina’s fine, right girl? She’s not Prime anymore. She likes us.”

“She named the ship’s computer Gina?” Adora whispered, brow raising and her jaw tightening, lips thin as she tried to hold back a laugh. It was all Catra could do to keep from smacking her—made easier by the death-grip she had on her chair’s arms.

“Thank you, Hope Actual. Take us in, Bow.” Glimmer set her hand on his shoulder and returned to her seat beside Adora. “Yes she did. And calm down, Catra. Gina’s on a cradle. If she gets uppity, I can teleport her outside the ship.”

“But that computer was Horde Prime’s computer!”

“And?” Bow asked, not taking his eyes off the holographic display guiding him in. “I worked with Entrapta to clean out any… indoctrination.”

Catra shivered and curled up tighter in her seat, flinched when Adora’s arm settled over her shoulders. It held back the feeling. The fear. The emptiness. Looking out at what her body was doing, unable to do anything, unable to do more than feel what was being done to her, what she was doing to her love, and knowing that if only she was a little stronger, she could push back.

She would _die_ before she had to face that again.

 _“I’m with you. I’m here.”_ Adora’s voice across the months, breaking through. She held onto it, pulling herself back from the brink with Adora’s presence and voice, her sheer cussedness at resisting. It drew her back from the ragged edge of fear and panic.

“None of _you_ had to deal with being indoctrinated,” Catra hissed, sitting up straighter and taking a deep breath. “I don’t want _any_ chance of that happening again. I might not come back.”

“Relax,” Entrapta said, her cocky voice grating on Catra’s ears. “All the indoctrination tech has been destroyed. I had Mary and Wendy scour the ship and destroy anything they found.”

“And who are they?” Catra demanded. “More Prime bots?”

“Robots! They’re like Emily’s sisters! But.” Silence. Awkward stretching silence. 

“Entrapta?” Glimmer prompted. “What haven’t you been including in your reports?”

“Oh, lots of things. But not important things. Just things that aren’t my job.”

Glimmer rubbed at her forehead, and if it weren’t for the crippling anxiety of being surrounded by void with only a paper shuttle around her, it would have been hilarious.

_This is what I had to deal with, Glimmer._

“ _Entrapta._ ”

“Um. Yes. Prime bots.”

“Agh! None of you were listening when I told you how dangerous they are! If there’s _any_ Prime left out there, we’ve got—” Catra wanted to stand up and pace, but she didn’t want to distract Bow. Not with _void_ all around them and only a flimsy Horde Interceptor shuttle’s shell to protect them. She’d seen how fragile they were. And _space_ was worse than water.

She settled for sinking her claws into the plastic even more and gritting her teeth. At least on the ship, she could ignore space almost everywhere.

“Wait,” Glimmer held up a hand. “Entrapta, just how specific were you about ‘find and destroy’ indoctrination chips?”

“Um. Can I get back to you on that?” The link went dead.

“We’re going to die,” Catra groaned, clutching the armrests even harder, the plastic starting to crack under her claws’ assault.

“We’re not gonna die,” Adora murmured in her ear. “We’ll be fine.”

Catra just gritted her teeth as the ship got closer and closer, the trunks of the trees encasing the original hull glittering like gemstones in the morning void, the green like emeralds shifting in an ethereal wind. It was beautiful and a reminder of the absolute void just on the other side of the viewscreen. Each one was as sharp as a dagger’s edge.

They touched down in the hangar without incident, the interior mostly unchanged from its original, the walls still bright white, the green lights of Horde Prime’s technical lights replaced by the blue of Etherian magical ones.

Just that one little difference served to settle Catra’s tail until she could get it to lie flat again, curled around her feet. “I don’t know what I expected,” she murmured. It was the first time she’d been up to the massive ship. The ship where her mind had been taken over; where she’d almost died; where she’d almost killed Adora; where—

Adora pulled her close and whispered gently in her ear, “He’s not here. He will never be here again.”

Catra jerked a nod and sucked in a breath, her eyes jerking from member to member of the interceptor’s bridge crew. Only Adora was giving her any attention. The others were conspicuously unstrapping from seats or staring out the front viewport. Giving her the chance she needed to collect herself. To face what the ship had become, and not what it had been.

To her.

“I wanna face the bastard down,” Catra growled, her heart hammering in her chest as that four-eyed face flashed through her mind again. “I wanna stomp on his memory until it’s less than dust.”

“That’s my wildcat,” Adora murmured, standing up and stretching, cracking her jaw. “Alright. We ready?”

Catra stood up on her own, stretching and stuffing the fear back in its box, and socked Adora lightly on the shoulder. “Of course. Let’s go see what Perfuma and the others have been up to.”

* * *

“...and if you want to get to the recreational areas, you follow these green flowers,” Perfuma was saying, the words washing over Catra with little more than surface meaning.

The ship had been _transformed_ inside and out, with only necessary components left untouched. Grass grew on the decks, with reverse garden squares built up out of living wood around hatches and access panels, creating a bizarrely beautiful patchwork of white and _living_ green, not the sickly green of death and rot that Prime had loved.

Everywhere there were flowers, and flowering vines were anchored to the walls with bolted on hooks, different colors leading in different directions and each one meaning something different. Green flowers for residential areas, blue for utility, red for emergency areas, and white for command. 

It was no longer a ship that had to be navigated by clones connected to a slaved neural network. Not that the ship had been fully explored. Only the core area of each deck and some branching tunnels had been mapped out in anything like detail. Elsewhere, the plants couldn’t reach, because they required too much of the precious water the ship recycled continually through organic means, plants that Perfuma had brought up from Etheria that could filter out toxins.

“I think that’s about it for where most of the crew will be living and working,” Glimmer said, waving about. “These spaces will be wonderful for your farming initiative, Perfuma, and you’ve done a great job getting things organized down here, and I’d like to look around more absolutely, but I think it’s time for Entrapta’s part of the tour.”

“Um. Yes.” Entrapta didn’t look up from the compupad she kept with her every waking moment. “My part of the tour. The _command_ section. We’re approaching perigee soon, and we should be there for the final burn. Just in case, you know, we need to take manual control.”

Catra’s heart leapt into her throat. “The ship’s on autopilot?!”

“Relaax,” Entrapta said, tossing her compupad back into her hair and patting on the lift door. “Daisy—”

“ _Hope of Etheria,_ ” Glimmer growled.

“—will take us right up there and we can observe! You’ll see. I did all the course calculations myself _and_ input them into the computer.” 

The lift door opened, and they all crowded in, Catra’s heart rising into her throat as the deck number scrolled up towards where it’d all happened. Where she’d betrayed Horde Prime. Where he’d paid it back.

_Please stop. Please stop._

It did not, of course. The command deck could only be one place. Only one place.

Adora’s hold on her hand tightened, reminding her she was still there through the numbness that was spreading through her, threatening to freeze her in place once the lift slowed, the numbers scrolling upwards in their alien script. But she knew that top number. By heart. It was burned into her mind.

It was the last thing besides hordes of clones that she wanted to see.

_There are worse things than death._

Like not facing it. Where she’d come inches from it.

She squeezed Adora’s hand and strode forward the moment the lift doors opened and stopped almost as immediately, her mouth dropping open.

Death and corruption had been replaced with life and a slice of Etheria’s forests.

Perfuma had replaced the great empty void surrounding the central platform with a spider’s web of vines stretched taut between the walls and the rest of the area, smaller vines and flat sections of matting spread over the rest, hiding the thirty foot drop to the area below, the sloshing of water hinting at what had replaced the echoing void.

The city-sized chamber had been filled with a forest, tents and pavilions dotting the seemingly solid mat of vines creeping out from the central platform, no longer sterile white, and trees lining the rim, and the grass covering every surface. Even Prime’s throne was gone, and only the view screens remained.

All around the platform, a grove of massive trunks supported and covered the command area with low branches interlaced and grown together into a shell from which hung a hundred small bulbs that glowed soft white.

Above them, the trunks continued almost to the ceiling nearly a hundred feet up, their canopies lit and nourished by seven glowing stars casting flickering golden radiance down on the surrounding areas, making the entire tableau, save for the view of space on the main monitor, seem like just another part of Etheria.

For most of the crew, it would be a home away from home.

For her… for Adora…

There were tears in Adora’s eyes, too, falling freely down her cheeks, unnoticed by any but her for the moment. She met Catra’s eyes, stunned disbelief as her lips moved, almost a smile, trembling, scared.

Hopeful.

For them, it was where they’d found their homes again.

“We call this chamber,” Glimmer said, her hand settling on Adora’s shoulder, “the Heart of Hope. It’s where the new heart was seeded.”

“It’s all gone,” Adora whispered, the spell of silence broken. “It’s all gone,” she repeated, voice shaky, and slumped to her knees, fingers trailing over the stalks of silk-grass covering the entire deck and every walkway, her eyes locked at the central platform, now a grassy glade surrounded by a grove of trees with intertwined branches.

She couldn’t see the plating anymore, the steps to the throne, the place where she’d been pushed by Prime’s will to fall, then abandoned to her death. She hadn’t even had time to scream before the walkway below caught her with crushing force.

Adora twitched beside her, fingers reaching, clenching, then dropping back to her side. “I almost lost you,” she murmured. “Here.”

“I found you here,” Catra whispered back. _Hold it back, Catra. Keep… keep steady._ “I-it looks great,” she managed more loudly, rising and trying not to look for the exact spot on the greenway. There were so many terrifying moments. She could almost see them all, painful moments. Her body disobeying her screams, silent in the void of her mind. Seeing herself attacking Adora every other time in the year-long bitter feud.

“This…” Glimmer swallowed, walking past them and staring around, then back at them. “I… had no idea. I had no idea this was where…”

Adora glanced aside at Catra, her breathing more even, more in control, asking her what to do.

 _How should I know?_ A raised brow, a flick of the tail.

“It’s fine,” Catra said, pushing back the memories with an effort of will that set her fingers trembling. “Really. Looks great, Perfuma.”

Adora pushed herself up and offered a hand to Catra. “We… were expecting…” She shook her head and turned around to grin at them all. “Not sure, really, but not this. It looks great.”

Instead of accepting the hand, Catra pushed herself up, wobbled and brushed the hand behind Adora’s back with a casual brush, immediately twining her fingers together to stop the shaking in both of their hands. They were together again, at last, and had been for months. The place where they’d almost lost each other couldn’t… shouldn’t hold so much power over them.

“It really does,” Catra said, squeezing once and letting go. “Really like grove decor. Lotsa places to climb and lounge.”

Adora chuckled. “Maybe I’ll actually win a race this time.”

“As if.”

Glimmer, clearly disbelieving, tapped her fingers against her thighs, watching both of them before Entrapta slapped her on the back.

“The _best_ part is how Perfuma and I were able to reroute a lot of damaged wiring using hollow taproots as conduits. Come on! We put a lot of work into the display console.”

 _Thank you Entrapta,_ Catra thought, releasing a breath and following the manic, oblivious engineer at a distance, letting the others pass them by before shifting her grip on Adora’s hand, twining their fingers together, hiding the tremors.

“That was… unexpected,” Adora murmured after Scorpia, the last of the party from the tour, moved out of earshot.

“No kidding.”

But where else would the command module be if not in the former command center.

* * *

Adora watched, standing with her hands clasped behind her, as Etheria accelerated away behind them, the brilliant torch of their ethereal drive plume cast lights across the whole of Etheria, the magic feeding the magic.

“Is it odd,” Catra murmured at her side, her arms crossed in front of her, “that I don’t feel… lost? Seeing my home planet drifting away?”

“No.” Adora took a deep breath and let it out, grinned. “Because we’re not leaving forever, Catra. We’re just leaving while they do the boring bits.” That drew a short chuckle.

In one of the screens, the ground crew was cheering, waving them on and popping bottles of razwine. They were in the final approach and all systems were still happily green. The hyperspatial drive was warming up, and a ragged countdown had started, following the five minutes on the timer in the corner of the screen, chiming off every ten seconds until it engaged.

“Heh.” Catra bumped her hip against Adora’s. “You know it’d be a lot quieter there.”

Adora glanced around. Everyone was giving them some space. After that… she closed her eyes and pushed away the memories. After they’d faced down the past… nobody wanted to disturb their little island of peace, right there in the center where they’d started their fight. Conquering their fear of it by standing in the middle of it, standing strong with each other.

“I… don’t know if I’m ready for quiet.” She nodded at the screen showing their course. A shallow curve passing by a planet known to have magic crystals, another former First Ones colony, found from the archives of Prime’s conquests. 

“Oh?” Catra shifted, pressing her hip more firmly against Adora’s hip, grinning and fading into a frown as she studied Adora’s face. “What is it?”

This wasn’t something either of them had talked about much in the three months since the end of the war. Or even the month since they were fairly certain it _was_ the end. They’d spent all that time preparing for another invasion, another trick up Horde Prime’s sleeve, some way he would survive; a backup clone’s memories restored, the Clones reintegrated into an army and a galaxy-spanning neural network.

Hordak had said he would know if that happened.

Nobody had trusted him. Even now, Adora wasn’t sure she could trust his innate connection to Prime technology. Or him. 

Entrapta trusted both of those things. Which was why he was under lock and key and Entrapta didn’t have either a key or a ventilator big enough for her to squeeze through.

But there was always the chance, the possibility, that a little spark of Prime remained out there somewhere. With all of this technology, all of his fleets, clones, and robots, all of them keyed to his neural network, all it would take was one spark, and it might come down to Hordak to bring it down again.

Even if Prime was gone. There was still all of that out there, able to be manually reprogrammed and used. Ready for local warlords to take control, rebel factions to turn into despots, pirates to become even more dangerous.

The next Horde Prime might not even be one of his multitude, but something new.

“I need to know. For sure. That we’re done, Catra.” Her voice dropped to a lower tone, a softer whisper Catra had to strain to hear, “I don’t want to settle down with you, maybe have a few kids, and then have… this all happen again. I don’t want to be the next Mara.” 

“Kids?” Catra hissed back, swallowing, her tail flicking against Adora’s leg. “I don’t think we talked about kids.”

“We should talk about that, huh?” Adora murmured, glancing side-to-side, then unclasping her hands and settling one on Catra’s hip, pulling her closer. Children hadn’t been in the perfect future the magic had shown her, tempting her to stay there in the imaginary world beyond death. Not _in_ the picture, but she’d felt them all the same, false memories of a future pulled out of her desires. 

Hers and Catra’s children. Somewhere there in that future that haunted her dreams and her nightmares. That it would never come to pass. That it would. That the machine connected to temporal and spatial circuitry had somehow pulled out a possible future, not just a fragment of her own desires.

“Sometime,” she finished after a long moment. _How old was I there? Thirties? Forty?_ She wasn’t quite even twenty yet. Another few months. Maybe. She didn’t even know when, exactly, she’d been born. Her birth records were from the time she’d fallen out of the portal that Light Hope had guided Hordak’s machines to. “We should talk about it sometime.” 

“Yeah.” Catra leaned into her, tail curling around her knee, tip flicking. She started purring softly, contented. “Sometime when things are quieter.” Her eyes flicked to the ground crew viewscreen pointedly.

Adora chuckled and nodded. “We have time.” They had months to talk before they were back at Etheria, hopefully unburdened by the fears of another Horde Prime invasion, only what was coming next. Months to make decisions.

 _Just months?_

They had a lifetime. Adora relaxed more into Catra’s presence, taking it in along with the wellspring of good cheer erupting all around them.

They settled in to watch as the square reticle lined up with their exit path, when they could safely engage the hyperspatial engines and truly start their journey, tipping her head to rest against Catra’s.

“Ten,” came the call.

“Nine,” Adora whispered, turning to Catra and tuning out the rest of the crew watching the screens. Nobody was watching them.

“Eight,” Catra’s lips brushed hers, hands came up to caress her cheeks, pulling her closer.

“Five,” the crew cheered.

Five seconds to forever.

Adora spent it with Catra in a moment of their own making, sharing a breathless kiss, holding each other against what the future held, against the past all around them. 

Zero.

The stars stretched and blurred, and a shiver ran through the ship, through them, as normal space fell away and the starship _Hope of Etheria_ flashed past lightspeed toward a new Heart.

* * *

“I’d like to welcome all of you aboard the _Hope of Etheria_ ,” Glimmer called out to the assemblage of people in the chamber, all of them now sitting cross legged or leaning on one another in the absence of a table and chairs. An oversight, and one she was tempted to have Perfuma correct… but maybe it was best for the first meeting to be more informal. “It’s been a long three months since Horde Prime was defeated, but we’ve made it. Congratulations!”

Ragged cheers rose from the assembled crew. Most of them were section heads or squad leaders. Three were force captains, and their force leader, Scorpia, sat with them, Perfuma still in her lap.

Catra and Adora sat side by side, hands clasped in the grass between their knees and mostly out of sight, as if they were trying to pretend their relationship were still _close_ but platonic. Despite the kiss Glimmer had seen. The first one she’d seen.

It had been heartening to see after that display of… emotion. She wouldn’t quite call it _terror_ , but… Glimmer could only imagine what had gone on between them here. Maybe she could have Entrapta look for the security footage. 

She knew Prime had kept watch on _everything_ aboard ship, and there was no way that could just be stored in a neural network of hardware-augmented minds. He practically bragged about it at every chance he could. _‘Prime sees all. Prime knows all.’_

Maybe he did, and maybe he didn’t. Glimmer straightened, pushed aside the thoughts, and centered herself on the tracker pad bow had made for her. More capable, he claimed, than the compupads the Horde used.

 _Notes, notes…_ “Now that we’re on our way, I suppose most of you are wondering where we’re on our way _to._ ” She pointed to Entrapta. “Bring up the starmap.”

“Yes ma’am!” Entrapta saluted with one of her tails and started tapping furiously at her compupad while the main screen to Glimmer’s left glowed and shifted, bringing up a view of the galaxy as a whole, then shrinking down and zooming into a blue blip, then two blue blips, then a blue blip and a curved line. “Done!”

Glimmer stared at the screen, rubbing her temple. “Can you put labels up, please?”

“Ah! Right.” More tapping, then they appeared.

“We are here,” Glimmer said, grimacing and pointing at the dot annoyingly labeled ‘Daisy.’ “Our first stop, because this isn’t a long-haul, is this former First Ones mining station. It’s labeled in the Prime database as an abandoned facility, with nothing useful left behind, but we’re hoping we can find some fuel crystals to top off our supply before we continue on. And maybe some First Ones records. It’s centrally placed to several other known First Ones colonies, including Etheria, and may have served as a message and data hub.”

“What’s it called?”

Glimmer glanced at the questioner, Perfuma, and shrugged. “I have no idea. Prime wasn’t really in the habit of keeping useful data around if _he_ found it useless. Or embarrassing.”

“Like Krytis,” Adora said.

“Like Krytis. Which… brings me to the next point.” She pointed at their ultimate destination. “We have no name for this planet, or the star, and its celestial position doesn’t match anything in any of the First Ones databases we’ve been able to find. Not even its galactic orbit matches anything. Entrapta, have you been able to find anything yet?”

“Nada. There’s still a lot of data in Horde Primes’ databases that we haven’t categorized. His filing system is slowly giving up its secrets. We should have more information soon.”

“No name, no nothing?” Glimmer asked in a quiet voice, glowering at the spot on the map that was simply a blazing sun.

“We, um… no.” Entrapta stared at her compupad for a moment, shrugged, and settled back down to continue tapping at it. “I’ll keep looking for it.”

“It might be exactly like Krytis,” Bow said, raising his hand but staying seated. “Maybe we just need to find a name so we can look it up. Most things are referenced by name at least once in the index.”

“Meaning we’ve got trillions of entries to sort through!” Entrapta cooed, leaning more into the tapping and swiping on her compupad. “There must be so much fascinating data in there!”

“Yeah, she’s gone,” Catra grumbled. “Anything else for this meeting or can we take a break?” She settled her hand on the deck plating, glancing at Adora, a tension seeming to pass between them for a moment, then relaxed.

Whatever had happened here… Glimmer resisted looking at Entrapta, barely, and nodded. “Yeah. We can take a break. There’s some rooms nearby that we’ve been thinking would be good for resting. There’s nothing of Prime left in them anymore. Right, Perfuma?”

“Right! I actually have two rooms for you. Side-by-side.” Perfuma waved a hand and sent a streamer of blue and yellow flowers down the stairs. “Just follow the flowers. Blue for Adora, yellow for Catra.”

“We just need one,” Adora said softly, her cheeks pinking. “Thank you, Perfuma, for the thought, but we’re good now.” She pulled Catra closer, the feline rolling her eyes. “It’s just like old times for us.”

Catra sighed and leaned into the embrace, eyes rolling despite the flush creeping up her cheeks and the way her tail seemed permanently welded to Adora’s hip. “Yep. _Just_ like old times.”

Glimmer glanced around, gauging reactions, seeing who else knew, whom else might have seen the kiss they’d shared. But none of them seemed to twig onto it, only looking on with sympathy or, in the case of some of the old Horde crew, annoyance.

But nothing like dawning realization. Either they knew already and were pretending along with Adora and Catra that nothing was happening besides old friends clinging to each other in a place where they’d had a shared, traumatic experience…

 _But isn’t that enough?_ Another quick look confirmed her earlier observation. It was enough. Nobody would look past the surface unless they already knew. _Does nobody believe people can change?_

“Just like old times?” Lonnie asked, glowering at Catra. “Gonna sleep at the foot of her bed again?”

“No,” Catra growled, but a sidelong glance at Adora, then a pointed one at Glimmer plainly said, ‘I didn’t start this.’

_Please don’t finish it, Catra._

She was about to, she could see the anger roiling in her eyes, in the ticking of her ears, and the twitching of her tail. The only other movement was Adora’s hand shifting to settle on Catra’s knee, giving a squeeze. Either warning or comforting, it had the effect of making Catra settle back down, ears ticking more slowly.

“I’ve never been comfortable in beds,” Catra mumbled, breaking eye contact with Lonnie. “Rather sleep in a hammock.”

Glimmer took a breath and let it out slowly. “There are some tensions to work out on the team, too, I see. We’ll have plenty of time in the next long while to work on that. And I do expect all of you to be a well-oiled machine by the time we arrive, understand?”

Lonnie grunted and nodded, shooting Catra and Adora another knife-edged glare before relaxing back against Rogelio’s propped up knee. “Yeah. Got it.”

Catra flicked a look at her and nodded, folding her arms over her chest, ignoring Lonnie and her comrades altogether. “Got it.”

 _Was accepting them as volunteers a mistake?_ She didn’t know everything that’d led to the disintegration of the Horde, and Catra had stayed mostly away from the former Horde soldiers for the months after the fall. They were unknown variables.

Too many unknowns. But Catra had spoken for their loyalty, at least—and asked her not to tell them she had.

Glimmer closed her eyes and massaged her scalp.

“Let’s… get back here in an hour, then. We still have to figure out our plan for the next month.” Glimmer waved her hand and teleported away.

It was going to be a long voyage.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter in a few days. Have seven and a half written, currently working on refining these earlier chapters.


	4. Mission Parameters

“It looks good, though, doesn’t it?” Adora murmured in Catra’s ear while she slowly stroked her love’s throat, drawing out the healing power of purring. She was so beautiful with her neck exposed, her head leaned back against Adora’s shoulder. “What they did for the… the command center.”

“Yes…” Catra’s word was barely audible over the rumbling purr deep in her chest, vibrating her fingers and deep into Adora’s chest.

It was only a few minutes until they were expected back and they’d spent most of that time cuddled up on their bed, holding one another, fighting back the wake of their battle as it’d come upon them again, the three still-fresh scars on her shoulder tingling, still pink from where Prime-controlled Catra had dug in deep.

They’d both known, deep down, that the only place they could control the ship was from the actual control room, and they would be there.

“Think we’re ready to go back again?” Adora murmured.

Catra’s purring faded away and she sighed. “Do we have any choice?”

“Not really. We signed up for this, remember?” Adora flicked under her chin and earned herself a light bite, then a lick and a kiss. “We’ve got duties. We just don’t know what they are yet.”

“Grr.” Catra slumped more heavily against her. “Fine.”

“That means you have to get up, silly.” A prod to the ribs drew almost a giggle, more of a grunt, but no movement. “Will I have to carry you?”

“No…” Catra sighed. Her breath hitched, and a tremble started in her hands. “I’m sorry.”

“For…” Adora slipped her fingers into Catra’s, squeezing gently, drawing her closer, not too gently, not too roughly. It was such a fine line between something that would bring Catra down for days, and something that would pass in a few minutes. 

“Everything.” The trembling got worse.

She held on tighter. “That’s a lot.”

“I did a lot.” Catra’s breath hitched as she tried to laugh, shook, and breathed in more deeply, her breathing hitching again. “I have to live with all of it, Adora.”

“Shh…” Adora’s breath caught as she took a breath and held her closer. “You do. You do, Catra, but I’m going to be with you. I’m not leaving you again.”

“What I did to you—”

“What I did to _you_ ,” Adora murmured. “I never stood up—”

“You did! You did, Adora!” Catra pulled herself away and twisted to face her, finger jabbing at her nose. “You stood up against Shadow Weaver all the time for me! You’re the only reason I’m not dead in a gutter!”

“I never put myself in your place, Catra. I never let her take her anger out on _me._ It was always you.” _Maybe if I’d done that… just once, you would have walked away with me._ “I still hate her for what she did to you,” Adora said, her voice trembling as she brushed back Catra’s soft hair, cupped her ears briefly. “I hate that you have to live with how she brought you up. Us up. That she pitted us against each other, _made_ us fight for her affection. That she was _never_ fair.”

Catra collapsed on her, shoulders shaking, tears leaking through to Adora’s jacket, breath coming jaggedly, but she held back the sobs. She hated being weak, being seen as weak. But she wasn’t, and she was starting to see it.

The spells were coming more infrequently. The bouts of grief for what she’d done. The fragments of madness that came back to her from when Shadow Weaver had shattered her mind with the betrayal of choosing Adora over Catra. Again. And again. And again.

And one final time.

The final betrayal had only been one more terrible thing Shadow Weaver had done to her, but also the last feather tipping the scales.

There was nothing she could do to fix the past. There was nothing she could do at all but keep her promise. All Adora could do for her during these spells was hold her. 

Stay with her. 

No matter what. 

“Breathe, kitten,” Adora murmured into her hair. “Breathe.”

Catra breathed. She sucked in a breath and cried harder, her voice rising into a scream of anguish and frustration before she collapsed, whimpering.

Adora could see it again. The same moment Catra had seen. Worse than indoctrination. Because it had been her choice. A choice that had left scars on both of them that were still raw in too many ways.

The portal. It always came back to the portal. That one terrible chain of stepping over bounds, stepping over more, just one more leap and it’d be over.

She had to live with hurting Adora, with almost destroying the world. And Adora had to live with knowing that, for a short time, she _had_ hated Catra. 

But, even through that hate, she had hoped.

“Remember…” Adora murmured. “Remember when everything changed, Catra. Remember when you came back to me.”

“I remember,” Catra whispered. Her breathing grew more even, became slower, meditative. Her thoughts turning to the moment that it had all come back. When the past; the betrayals; the hurt.

When that fell away from their eyes.

When they looked past the shadow in both of their lives and found each other.

Again.

“You saved me,” Catra murmured.

“We saved each other. You’re my hope, Catra. You always have been.” The Sword of Protection had been a tool to keep that hope alive. That she might be able to heal Catra of the damage Shadow Weaver had done, erased all the dark magic Shadow Weaver had flooded Catra’s mind with to punish her. If only she’d managed to capture Catra herself. “You came back to me.”

If only she’d managed that _one thing_ , she could have healed her home.

But that had never been the sword's purpose. Light Hope had lied to her. Her very _name_ had been a lie. The sword was a weapon. It always had been.

She-Ra was the healer, the sword a binding on the magic, a way to cheat and get the easy way around. So were the rune stones. Constraints and restraints. First Ones cheating how magic was supposed to work.

She couldn't have healed Catra with the sword. Not until the binding was broken and she'd seen the true shape of magic. Magic was hope, Iove, and connections with others, friendships.

Shadow Weaver had lied. One last time. Saying she had to let go. Trying to mold her just like she had Catra into a creature of hate and fear, believing that caring was weakness.

She wanted to believe that Shadow Weaver had died finally understanding.

Neither of them had raised a memorial for her. Neither of them wanted to. It was best for Shadow Weaver to be forgotten once they were gone.

Catra’s shaking slowed, stopped, and Adora could almost feel the numbness settle over her as she settled in heavier than before, her muscles relaxing, tension leaving her as she nestled her face into Adora’s shoulder.

“You stayed with me,” Catra murmured.

“Always.”

They lay like that, taking calm comfort in warmth and weight, until heavy footsteps in the corridor outside made Catra sit up and slide to the edge of the bed, her hand drifting back to Adora’s, the other wiping at her eyes and face.

A curling mrow from the hallway announced Melog as the creature limped its way to their door and opened it with a careful push.

“Melog!” Catra cried, leaping from the bed to Melog’s side. “You should be resting!”

“Melog felt your pain,” Adora murmured, rising from the bed and joining her love as Catra listened to the catlike being’s thoughts or expressions interspersed with very catlike mrows and purrs. “Even I can tell that much, Catra, and I can’t understand her.”

“Dummy,” Catra said lightly, crouching to stroke the creature’s muzzle and cheek. She'd been stuck in that form for months now, the scores along her body from the bloody Battle of the Heart not really healing, not bleeding either, but as if Melog was made out of clay and lacked any more to remake herself. “I’m fine. Just… dealing with my own dumb.”

When they’d sent Melog up to the ship, almost two weeks ago, they’d both been sure the creature was about to die, and hoped that a _new_ magic would be the cure. The magic of the Heart that was growing in the _Hope_ was unlike anything else they’d ever seen on Etheria, wild and untamed from the start, unchained, just like Krytis when they’d visited.

That Melog was able to walk on her own was a testament to how well it had worked. They’d feared they’d need to return to Krytis to get help for her.

“Yeah, no. I’m not buying that.” Catra flicked a finger under Melog’s chin. “You need to go lay down and reserve your magic, Melog. I’ll be fine.”

In response, Melog padded over to their bed and curled up at the foot. Thankfully not _on_ the covers. Melog was far too large to leave any room for them to sleep.

Adora rolled her eyes. “She takes after a certain someone I know.”

“She…” Catra said gently. “She reminds me of you.” She paused, her hand on Adora’s bicep as she pushed herself up, all the pain and anguish of a few moments ago faded, but not gone. Caring for Melog calmed her in ways that even Adora couldn’t manage.

That reason alone had likely been why Melog had hidden her injuries for so long.

The pain, the guilt.. they would still be there if Adora looked for the signs, but she didn’t want to. Not when she was smiling.

“I was thinking she reminded me of you.” All she wanted was for Catra to be okay, but this was a battle as desperate as any she’d fought against the Horde, and she was in it for the long haul, just like then. “We ready?”

“As long as this punk stays put,” Catra growled, eyelid twitching as Melog growled. “And no. I don’t care. You stay put. The most you could do is lay down at them aggressively.”

Melog’s rolling purr sounded almost like a laugh.

“What’d she say?”

“She offered to gnaw on Lonnie for me.” Catra stepped out of the room and waited for Adora to join her before swiping up at the air and twisting, locking and soundproofing the door, making it opaque. “As if I need that complication.”

“Yeah…” Adora glanced back at the door, lips pursed. “Does she… care that we, um…”

“No.” Catra’s brows shot up. “Agh! We’ve never…” They’d started having sex _after_ Melog was up in the _Hope_ , and video calls had confirmed that their companion was doing better. Before… it’d been too awkward to try, both uncertain about what to do, but wanting to and at the same time not wanting another witness to their awkward fumbles at being intimate, as non judgemental as they might be.

“Does she even understand what it is?” Adora asked as they started walking to the command center again, her hand brushing Catra’s, waiting for her to capture it.

“I’ve never asked,” Catra replied, flushing and batting at Adora’s hand once before clasping it lightly. “I’d rather not give ‘the talk’ to an alien creature that might not have the concept. Did you learn what ‘the talk’ was in Bright Moon?”

“No. Nobody would tell me, but they all joked about it.” Adora huffed and rolled her shoulders. “I doubt _that_ talk would work for Melog.”

“The Talk” in the Fright Zone had been “Don’t do it. We don’t need more orphans.” The implications heavily weighted towards a dire fate for those caught having sex. In retrospect, it was likely because Hordak hated children, and hated his inability to actually create a clone.

“Then how’re we going to explain to her that we need privacy sometimes?” Catra raised a brow, rubbing Melog’s neck slowly. Her ‘mane’ was brighter today.

“I can try. Sometime.” She wasn’t sure if she was ready for that tonight. She wasn’t sure if she’d be in the mood anytime soon. All she wanted right then was to go to lay down with Catra in her arms and sleep for a week, dreaming of a future she’d seen only briefly. A beautiful future.

Catra pursed her lips, then grinned. “You’re braver than I am. Fine. Sometime, then. Until then… I am exhausted.”

“You more than me.” She sprinted ahead before that could sink in, laughing as Catra’s growl caught up to her, bare feet on the grass-covered corridor floor muffling her sprint as she passed Adora in a flash of crimson and gold, stopping at the foot of the ramp up to the command center.

“You’re still slow, Adora,” Catra purred as she caught up, then yelped as Adora tickled her side, laughed, and lunged up the ramp. “Cheater!”

“Ahh, no. Using my natural advantages,” Adora called back, waggling her fingers behind her, as she raced flat out up the grassy ramp, barely keeping ahead of a laughing Catra hot on her heels.

“I have those too!”

“But _you’re_ more ticklish!”

“We’ll see about that!”

Then they broke onto the command floor, Catra tackling her at the last moment with a flying leap, or trying to tackle her. Adora rolled with it, catching herself and arresting her motion with fingers clenched around a fistful of grass and using Catra’s momentum to swing her down, landing with a whoosh of air, Adora atop her, both breathing hard.

“Ah…” Catra patted her thigh after a brief struggle. “You win.”

But the moment Adora shifted her weight, Catra writhed and bucked, throwing Adora off and landing atop her.

“And now I win. We’re even.” Catra patted her cheek and rose, offering a hand. “That was fun.”

“Hah, yeah.” 

Eyes were on them from every corner of the massive chamber as Adora hauled herself up to throw an arm around Catra’s shoulders. It _was_ almost like their days in the Horde. Chasing, being chased… with only one little difference. Shadow Weaver and Hordak weren’t there to dampen their spirits.

And they weren’t hiding from each other anymore.

“We make it back on time?” Adora asked loudly, looking for Glimmer’s sparkling figure or Bow’s gold and white outfit. Neither seemed to be present.

Entrapta hadn’t seemed to move an inch, but there was data scrolling on the viewscreens around the main one while flickers of images appeared and disappeared on the central display. 

Entrapta in her natural habitat was a fascinating sight, and just a little nauseating as the images flickered by too fast for anyone but her quirky brain to register.

Scorpia was lugging around giant pots with trees in them, rearranging the order of them at Perfuma’s direction, the horde contingent was lounging off to one side, the three of them having barely looked up as Adora and Catra entered the scene. Only Kyle seemed at least interested in talking to them, but looks from Rogelio and Lonnie kept him in place.

“I guess we’re early,” Catra murmured, and wandered up to Entrapta. “How goes the search?”

The flickering images slowed, but didn’t stop as Entrapta turned some of her attention away and to them. “Ah! Very well! I seem to have identified a common root cluster of datagrams for planetary observations data, but as you can imagine there are millions upon millions of worlds under observation in this galaxy alone!”

“And… you have it narrowed down to this galaxy?” Adora asked, raising a brow.

“Oh! No, not yet. Prime’s stellar cartography system was so much more complex than the First Ones’. It has to be, you know, because he had more than one galaxy under his control. You couldn’t use the standard galactic north and south to identify the route from one star to another. You had to use a universal constant for ‘north’ and ‘south.’”

Entrapta went on for some time about intergalactic navigation and coordinates, using words that sounded increasingly made up to Adora. From a glance at Catra, who answered it with a shrug, she knew wasn’t the only one feeling lost. Maybe she could get her to repeat it to Bow later and get the translation.

It was a relief when Glimmer teleported in with Bow, his usually cleanly combed hair just a bit messy… before he fixed that and combed it back down.

Adora nudged Catra and winked.

“What? They smell like each other all the time.” Catra grinned and rubbed her cheek against Adora’s, whispering, “Just like you smell like me.”

“Ahah.” Adora chuckled and sat down to watch Entrapta’s nauseatingly quick navigation of data on the main screen. Perhaps there was something in there about where she’d come from, and maybe one of the planet images floating past would give her the clue to where she’d been born.

But in ten minutes of watching, waiting as more and more people came and joined the circle, all she got was dizzy and a bored Catra building a small fort out of blades of grass.

“Everyone!” Glimmer called as soon as she fixed her pearl-drop tiara back into place, giving a giggling Scorpia a firm look, then settling into Queen Glimmer stance. “It’s time to divvy up responsibilities and assign sections for those of you who haven’t been assigned sections yet.”

Adora and Catra joined the same rough circle, but a glance and nod to Perfuma was all that was needed for the princess to raise her hand and call forth a giant mushroom with a flat white top that was as hard and tough as wood, and twenty chairs formed out of woody vines, placed at just the right height for each participant.

It was a reminder of just how powerful and skilled Perfuma actually was, and why everyone was glad she’d never been chipped. Most of Etheria was covered in plantlife, after all, and a chipped Perfuma would have been devastating, especially considering the indoctrinated fought without regard for their own safety or physical limitations.

“Thank you, Perfuma. Now. Those of you who’d been involved in tearing down the old Fright Zone and rebuilding it into a peaceful settlement haven’t received assignments yet.” Glimmer nodded to the three former horde and Adora and Catra. “As have those of you who were being general help,” she nodded to Scorpia and a small group of former rebellion leaders Adora didn’t know except at a glance.

“That changes today. We need leaders for exploration teams. We need trainers for our troops to keep them sharp. We need administrators to help keep track of food, water, and materials.”

Bow’s hand shot up at the last one.

“Yes, Bow, you’re already chief administrator.” Glimmer chuckled along with the rest of them. “We also need someone to act as a liaison for Hordak. Who _won’t_ get distracted talking to him,” she added as Entrapta raised three bundles of hair and two arms. “That is a part time job, and would be in addition to your other duties.”

“Why not you, Glimmer?” Adora asked, shrugging. “None of us are exactly his favorite people.”

“I’m not exactly his favorite person, either, but we need someone besides Entrapta to talk to him. And I want to keep him at least ‘happy.’” Glimmer grimaced and leaned heavily against the mushroom table. “Or whatever passes for happy with Prime’s clones.”

“Why not Entrapta _and_ someone else?” Lonnie asked, raising her hand. “I mean, that way at least he doesn’t get lonely. I’d rather not see what happens when he gets lonely and bored on this ship.”

Adora shivered.

Catra patted her thigh, then raised her hand. “I volunteer.”

“Catra!” Glimmer stared at her. “Why?”

“Hey, I’ve gotta face him sometime, right?” Catra shrugged far too nonchalantly. “Besides, Entrapta will be there. I… want to close up some loose ends between us.”

Glimmer stared suspiciously at her.

“I’m not gonna kill him, geesh. I’m not that Catra anymore, Sparkles.” Catra stared the Queen down, unblinking. “That me is dead and buried, and I think you know when she died.”

Glimmer returned the stare measure-for-measure, then closed her eyes with a sigh. “You’re right. I do. Alright. One volunteer.”

“I volunteer!” Adora shouted, throwing her hand up.

“Fine. But not at the same time, Adora.” Glimmer made a tick on the compupad in front of her. “Anyone else? I’d like at least four on that rotation.”

Kyle and Lonnie raised their hands at the same time, glanced at each other, and after a moment Kyle put his hand back down. “I volunteer. No grudges. Just wanna make the crew run smooth.”

Lonnie, apparently, had come out as the clear leader of their former squad. Not surprising Adora in the least. Beyond her and Catra, the young woman was leagues above the rest of the Horde in terms of capability.

But, like Catra, she’d suffered by being in the same squad as Adora, and dismissed as useless without her. Unlike Catra, she’d not been the target of abuse from Shadow Weaver. No doubt she would have been had Adora formed a bond with her instead. That had always been the sticking point. 

Nobody could have Adora’s adoration besides Shadow Weaver.

“That’s three… and fine. I’ll be four. There’s some things I want to clear the air about anyway. Alright.” Glimmer tapped at her compupad and glanced aside at Bow. “That… task out of the way, Bow, do you have anyone you’d like for Administrative duties?”

“Scorpia, actually.”

“Wait? Me?” Scorpia’s eyes got wide. “But… well, I mean, I did help Shadow Weaver and Hordak with their organization, even if I wasn’t very good at it, but I guess I _do_ have experience…” She tapped a pincer against the woody mushroom table and gazed thoughtfully over the surface. “I mean, sure. That sounds like something I could do.”

“Great! There’s your plus one, Bow. You’ll have whoever you want from the Horde or Rebel camps to fill out the ranks.”

“Kyle, too,” Bow said, glancing at the slender human. “You okay with that?”

“Um. Sure. I was kinda wondering what I’d do, but administration sounds right up my alley.”

“Alright, that’s good…” Glimmer swept on even as she was still tapping away. “We need instructors to run drills for our troops. We _know_ there are Prime remnants out there, but how coherent they’ll be as opposition forces we have no idea. Most likely they’ll be like the situation on Cindella before we lost communication.”

Silence followed the remark as people met eyes across the table or stared down at their hands.

Cindella had been a Prime Stronghold and one of the places the Star Siblings had started an uprising. The initial counter had been brutal, but the counterstroke from the rebel forces had found… death. Everywhere.

Sick and dying clones, all of them with various shades of yellow eyes—nutrient deprivation Hordak had said. And then one last image from the doomed Prime installation, the sound of laser cutters working at the door’s entrance as the last small group of Clones sent out a desperate plea for assistance. 

Moments before one of them, in a last fit of fanatic fervor, had triggered a self-destruct.

Thousands of rebel fighters dead. The auxiliary node had been next, and they’d lost contact.

Even Hordak had seemed disturbed by the fate of his brothers. Whether out of a sense of connection or what ultimately lay in his future without a steady supply of nutrient paste from Prime, he would eventually become… as he had. He would be forced to destroy his body to accept substitutes.

And he would die. As much as she hated him, he was the closest thing to a father Adora had. The prospect of losing him, the only link she had to where she might have come from, to a real family that missed her, hurt.

“Let’s hope not,” Adora said weakly. “I don’t want to imagine what Cindella is like now.”

“We need to be prepared for it at the same time we hope we don’t need to,” Glimmer said, stabbing the table with a stiff finger. “We _need_ troops to handle the unexpected. We can’t just assume the universe will be nice and kind. Not with thousands of Prime nodes out there. Not all of the clones may have reacted like the ones on Cindella. We might have a surprising amount of Wrong Hordaks out there.”

“We might also have nascent Horde Primes,” Catra said softly. “There are nutrient factories spread out throughout the galaxy, right Entrapta? Not everywhere will be like Cindella.”

“Yep!”

“As long as it’s _multiple_ ,” Lonnie said with a grunt. “They’d fight over who was _the_ Prime.”

“Not for long,” Adora growled. “There’d be one. Stronger, more ruthless than the rest.”

“Which makes it all the more important,” Glimmer said firmly, “that we spread magic as far and as wide as we can. Magic is Prime’s weakness. Even trying to take over the Heart of Etheria, he never understood it because it was alien to him, and more powerful than he. We _need_ this mission to succeed.”

Adora took a deep breath in the silence that followed and stood up. “And, to that end, I would like to volunteer myself and—” She waited until Catra rose and set a hand on her shoulder. “—Catra to be the vanguard of any exploration force sent out.”

“Granted.”

“What?!” Lonnie exploded, shooting up out of her chair. “Catra is a—”

Glimmer slapped her hand on the table, sending a wave of sparkling energy through the surface. “Catra is a valuable and experienced fighter, Lonnie, and I know there’s bad blood between you, and I know what she’s done in the past. She did a lot of it to me.”

Tension crackled in the air as Lonnie and Catra faced each other, both eventually turning to look at Glimmer as the sparkling on the table’s top intensified. 

“I forgave her. The past is done, gone. Catra has changed, Lonnie, and so have you, and I _accept_ that change as genuine. I accepted all of you. Horde soldiers without a horde, who’d defected before the end.”

Lonnie’s expression softened as she glanced at Kyle and Rogelio’s hand brushed her side.

“All of us have changed. I ask that you, both of you,” she added, splitting her attention between the two of them, “work on clearing the water.”

“For what it’s worth,” Catra said quietly into the silence, her fingers tightened on Adora’s shoulder, then relaxed, her voice somber as she said, “I am sorry for what I did to you and your squad, Lonnie. Kyle. Rogelio.”

Lonnie stared at her, huffed, and looked away, shoulders tense. “An apology from Catra. Today is full of surprises.”

Catra’s tail lashed, once, and settled still against Adora’s leg, and sat back down. “Thanks, Sparkles. I’ll work on it.”

Lonnie gritted her teeth and threw up her hands. “Fine! I’ll work on it, too.” Rogelio settled a broad hand on her shoulder and grunted. Kyle punched her lightly on the shoulder.

“Alright. Now. Can we get back on the agenda?” Glimmer glared around the table, finger tapping against the table as she met each pair of eyes with her own chilly gaze. “Good.”

“You did good, Catra,” Adora whispered to her as she sat.

“I’m not proud of what I did.”

“Want some help making up?”

“No.” Catra huffed. “Can’t rely on you for everything.”

* * *

Dinner settled warmly in her stomach, Catra stretched out on a tree limb, and stared up at the canopy above her lit by the dimming glow of the First Ones lanterns dangling from lower branches. It was, in a way, odd that she could climb above the stars on her own, artificial though those stars were.

The day had burned away in a boredom of meetings, getting familiar with the ship and the occupied sections, meeting the village leader and force leader of the rebellion and reformed horde contingents respectively, watching others react to her presence with Adora, and the easy way they had with each other.

That had been the hardest to swallow comments about. Her and Adora being a thing was rumored all over, and had been, for almost four months. A full month before they’d actually taken the plunge. 

None of them, either Horde or Rebel, were happy to see her.

Except for a few cautious smiles and grudging nods. Some had been there at the Battle of the Heart and knew what part she’d played. Or at least guessed a hint of it.

Adora’s guardian. She-Ra’s companion.

“Come up here often?”

Catra glanced down, grinned, and flicked her tail against Adora’s nose. “You said that the first time you followed me up the Fright Zone watchtower.” She chuckled. “The first time you actually made it.”

“Couldn’t think of anything else to say, then.” Adora sneezed lightly and batted at the tail and climbed up to sit on the branch just underneath her. “Thought it might be nice to have something familiar.”

“Mmm. Maybe.” She laughed softly and dropped her arm down to tickle at Adora’s hair. “Your funny little hair pouf is plenty familiar.”

Adora swatted at her hand, then caught it lightly and pressed it to her head. “I don’t like my hair getting in my eyes when I fight.” 

For a time, it was comforting to run her fingers through the soft pouf, over the crown of Adora’s head, and stroke her ponytail. She hadn’t changed it at all, that she could recall, in all the years they’d known each other. “I like your hair.”

Adora was quiet for a long moment, rubbing the back of Catra’s hand. “That’s why I’ve kept it long. I like it, too. I don’t even remember where I learned to do the pouf thing. I’ve just always worn it like that.”

“Do you know it looks silly?” Catra rolled her head to the side to look at her love side-eyed and flicked her tail against the pouf, then her ponytail. “I like it. It’s you.”

“Duh. Everyone’s told me. But…” Adora stroked her blonde hair, poked at the pouf, and flicked her fingers against Catra’s tail. “I like it, too.”

“Because I like it?” Catra couldn’t stop the tremor in her hand.

“Mmm. Maybe at first.” Adora reached up and flicked her nose without looking. “But maybe it’s time for a change. Everything else has changed, Catra. But when I look in the mirror, I see just me. All I’d have to do is pin a green badge to my chest and I’d be back in the Fright Zone. Before the sword. Before…”

_Before I hurt you._

Adora coughed. “Before I hurt you. I should have gone back, Catra. I can see that now. If I’d gone back, calmed down… maybe… maybe if I’d just spent a day talking to you. Instead of rushing off like an idiot.”

Catra’s breath caught in her throat, tears threatening to come spilling out. “You are an idiot.”

“I’m your idiot.” Strong fingers closed around her wrist, soft lips touched the back, then her palm. “But the past, right? It’s done. Like Glimmer said. But…”

“But?” Catra curled her fingers under Adora’s jaw, stroking slowly, letting her warmth percolate through the sensitive fingertips.

“I’m scared to change, Catra.” Adora seemed to deflate as she said it, as if holding that in had been a part of her breath. “Even in the Horde… and the Rebellion. I didn't change much.”

“You’ve always been a big damn hero. That’s for sure.” She said it lightly, but her heart trembled all the way down to her fingertips. _Don’t. Don’t fall apart now._

“But… is that all I’m meant for?” Adora’s jaw tightened, and damp tears trickled down to Catra’s fingers. She brushed them away with her thumb. “I saw… I saw us. And I wasn’t a hero. I was just a woman. With you. I'd changed.”

Catra held her breath for a second. She’d heard Adora murmuring in her sleep, something that hurt her that she still couldn’t talk about. Something that happened far underground on the way to the heart. It only came out when she dreamt of it.

“In a dream?”

Adora was quiet for a moment, then nodded slowly. “Yeah. A dream. Lots of them.”

Catra rolled over on her branch carefully, hand acting as a pillow for her cheek and looked down into her love’s eyes. There was concern there, starting to melt away, and more as she gingerly brushed away the remnants of the tears on her cheeks. “Maybe start small. You were thinking about changing your hair?”

“I was thinking about a haircut. It’s been a while since I changed it.”

“I mean, forever _is_ a while.” A gentle prod to the head, stroking down to Adora’s ear, then back up to pull away her hair tie. “And I kinda like it loose. Maybe start there? I do like the way it sticks to your forehead when you work out. And… other times.”

Adora coughed. “You do?” She prodded Catra’s shoulder and took back the tie, then settled in more comfortably on her branch, mirroring her lover’s comfortability with heights, her posture perfect, her balance just right, her feet hooked just so around the thick branch. “I don’t like it when it sticks in my eyes.”

Catra batted playfully at her hands while she tried to fix her hair. “You know… there’s these things called _hair pins._ ”

“I hate em. They’re always falling out.”

“Because you keep jumping around.” Catra flicked that pink shell of an ear. “You _could_ just cut it short. I think you’d look good with a bob or a pixie cut.”

Adora was quiet for long moments, fingering her hair and staring out past Catra’s shoulder into the canopy. “Is it too big?”

“Your pouf? No.The change?” Catra bobbed her head side to side. “Also no.” She grinned at Adora’s half-hearted glower. “It’s not, Adora. Your hair hasn’t been what defines you for me.” She prodded Adora’s chest lightly.

Adora blinked, then smirked. “My boobs?”

“Hah! No. Your heart.” She paused a moment and settled her hand more firmly, palm cupping over the breast. “But also yes.”

Adora snorted, grinning. “Thanks. Just…” The grin faded into a frown. “I’m worried the others will worry about it, too, y’know. It’s a big change.”

“You shouldn’t have to worry.”

“But I do. I mean, you’re right. But I was always the big damn hero. Even when it made no sense. When it made more sense to retreat.” Adora flicked at her forehead, curled some of her hair back into a puffball. “Me, leading the way, charging in headfirst and hoping my little pouf would cushion the blow.”

“Maybe time to lay down that role for a bit.” Catra tugged lightly on the curl of hair and pulled it free of Adora’s grip. “We’d be hair buddies.”

“Wouldn’t that just freak everyone out.” Adora rocked her head side to side a bit. “Maybe too much?”

Catra resisted the urge to grit her teeth, and instead smiled, maybe a bit toothily, showing her fangs a little too much. “I think that’s the best argument _for_ a change.” Catra prodded her forehead lightly and brushed the hair out of her eyes. “Gotta keep em on their toes.”

Adora stared into her eyes and poked at her right fang. Catra’s teeth had never bothered Adora. They were, she said, just another part of you. Just like claws, fur, and a tail. She’d never taken that back. She’d never worried when Catra bit her, lightly most of the time. She’d never disparaged Catra’s appearance.

And she saw the bared fangs for what they were. Not a threat.

“Alright. Let’s do it. I do like the idea of being hair buddies.”

“Okay. But… wanna have some fun with it?” Catra had been watching, out of the corner of her eye, a pixie that flitted from place to place down below.

Adora caught the branch with one hand and leaned out over empty space, legs locked securely, no fear in her expression as she followed Catra’s pointing finger to the tableau thirty feet below.

“She…” Adora frowned.

“Needs a little mischief in her life.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be a bit delayed. Doing cleanup on other stories, too.


	5. Plans

Glimmer glared between the two women in her office, really a tent on the command deck, strung up between three of the pillars that made up the webbing of vines, only accessible by walkways and set on platforms made out of floor panels from broken Prime shuttles. All of the ‘offices’ and ‘facilities’ were made that way on the command deck. 

It was much more convenient to use the few large chambers like this one as general purpose rather than anything more than the closest ‘rooms’ that they’d retrofitted with beds and dressers for temporary quarters.

This was likely to become her home over the next few months if the administrative difficulties she’d had to deal with on Etheria began cropping up here.

Considering who her first visitors were on their _first day_ , and the ‘issue’ they had…

She closed her eyes and pondered teleporting out into space for a fraction of a second.

Catra and Adora. With the most _inane_ ‘problem’ she could imagine. A _haircut_. 

And they were both so… _eager_. Catra was hiding it better, but it was there in the way she kept darting looks at Adora, her ears twitching… it was like she was looking into the past that the two of them were always talking about. Shenanigans in the Fright Zone.

Even there, it seemed like Adora had been a light in the dark. And a pain in the rear.

“Explain it again.”

“Can you cut my hair?” Adora asked, pointing at Catra who, on cue, pushed away from the wall and posed with a hand behind her head, bright white, sharp smile, gleaming for an instant before she leaned back, resetting to her ‘too cool to care’ pose after only a second. “Like that.” 

The barely restrained giggles didn’t help sell anything. Even Catra was having a hard time keeping it in.

Glimmer squinted at one, then the other. “Why?”

“Because it’d be fun! And an experiment: does She-Ra grow my hair back if I cut it?” Adora pulled at her chin for a moment, getting that sarcastic look in her eyes. “You know… maybe we ought to go to Entrapta.”

“No!” Glimmer shot up out of her seat. “That is a _terrible_ idea!”

“Why not?” Catra asked, her voice almost a purr, her tail twitching contentedly. “Clearly Entrapta would _love_ to see if it works.”

“I know she would. That’s the problem. You’d start out _bald_. And then she’d make you permanently bald just to see if you could heal it.” Glimmer pointed at her head. “Please tell me you don’t want to be bald.” She glowered at Adora, at the pouf. “Don’t you, like, have… hair envy?”

“What? No!” Adora pfted and waved her hands, then glanced at Catra, grinned, and turned back to Glimmer. “I mean… not of She-Ra. She’s me. So how can I envy myself?”

“Okay. Fine.” Glimmer studied the two, tapping her fingers on her desk slowly. “And are you going to change your name to Baldilocks? You know that’s experiment number two.”

“No.” Adora tossed her head and flicked her ponytail. “Because it’s gonna work. Look, Catra and I are just trying to settle a little bet.”

Catra jerked upright, flicked a look at Adora, and chuckled. “Yep.”

 _Lie. And_ that _surprised you._ “And if you _lose?_ ”

Adora stared at her, then gave an obviously fake laugh, even patting her stomach. “I’m not gonna lose.”

“Okay, but consider if you do. You know the only option is a wig, Adora.”

Tail lashing, Catra flicked a finger at Adora, claw out. “No. You are not wearing a wig. You’re not going to Entrapta. That’s it.”

“But… ” Adora made an abortive elbow jab to the air and dropped her arm, and wandered over to have a terse, whispered conversation with Catra.

Glimmer rolled her eyes and turned her attention briefly back to the missive from Entrapta and the slowly spinning world that, at the end of the visual, suddenly spun what seemed like a hundred times before coming to a dead halt… and starting up again. Normally.

Adora’s voice rose over the level of audibility for a moment. “Yeah, but… Glimmer would have been suspicious.” 

“Hello! Right here.” Glimmer waved at her. “ _Really_ suspicious right now.”

“Told you she would be,” Catra murmured, her lips brushing Adora’s ear, still audible in that sultry purr. “Don’t go to Entrapta. I don’t want to see you in a wig, Adora.”

“Yeah… but…” Adora pulled at her ponytail for a second, making doe-eyes at Glimmer, then Catra, before finally slumping into one of the chairs in front of Glimmer’s desk. “Agh. Fiiine. I won’t go to Entrapta.”

 _You weren’t ever going to do that._ Glimmer dropped her head to her desk and poked at her monitor, turning it off, and groaned. The day had just started, and she already had two problems. Entrapta’s findings and… these two goofballs messing with her.

 _Why am I even playing along with this farce?_ They _were_ messing with her, she was sure of that, and had been from the moment they walked in, Adora grinning on the verge of laughter, Catra’s tail betraying her amusement. Peacetime laziness for soldiers. _Aren’t they?_

She took a moment to study them both again, each one meeting her gaze briefly, then looking away. Catra was cunning… and Adora could be, too, but she couldn’t act her way out of a hat.

 _She can’t act… but I can’t tell what parts of this are acting or her just being a sarcastic little shit._ Entrapta had been an obvious ruse, and she’d played up on her weakness to tease her. _That_ part had been sarcastic. So that meant… _She really wants to cut her hair?_

So. They were playing a deeper game. _Two can play at that game._ She took a deep breath and sat up straighter, hands folded in front of her, smiling. “Okay! Question first. Why do you want _me_ to cut your hair? At least answer me that.”

“You know… to undo it if it goes wrong.” Adora grinned, wavered, and flicked a look at Catra. 

Glimmer rolled her eyes. They were apparently getting off script and trying to improvise now. She stared at Adora, then flicked a look at Catra. “I can’t regrow hair. My magic isn't that advanced. Did you not know that?”

“Um…” Adora poked her fingers together, _obviously_ lying even without saying anything. “No?”

“Your _only_ fix for this is if She-Ra actually regrows your hair.” Glimmer threw a bit of sparkle at Adora’s forehead pouf. “Besides. You’d look really weird without that.”

“Um… that’s… kinda the point. Everything else has changed, Glimmer,” Adora said, pulling her hair tie out and tossing her head. 

Catra’s ears perked up, eyes darting to Adora, then back to Glimmer, ears settling back down. 

_You can’t fool me, kitten._ Glimmer’s smile grew as she watched Catra’s eyes twitch back to Adora’s long, loose hair time and again, her fingers curling, then relaxing.

“Everything around me has changed, Glimmer. Even the Fright Zone is half a garden now.” Adora shook her head slowly and stared down at the hair tie, flexing it and rolling it in her fingers as a strand of longer blond hair drifted in front of her eyes. “The only difference I can find is if I let my hair out like this.”

“So? You look good like that, Adora. You wore it like that to Princess Prom. Even Catra thinks it looked good then, right?”

“Well, I mean, yeah,” Catra muttered, her cheeks flaming and ears flat. “It was a little hard to focus on the mission, you know. With you in that dress. That hair…” Catra shrugged and forced herself to relax, the tension seeming to flee to her tail instead.

Adora smiled. “You were a little distracting, too. I thought you were going to kiss me.”

“Almost did.”

Their eyes met, and the somber note returned to both of their expressions. Glimmer hated seeing that… but they were growing past those hard moments, remembering almosts, maybes, and what ifs. They didn’t break eye contact, the tension growing more pronounced, a scene almost seeming to play out between them in their thoughts.

Until another strand of hair fell in front of Adora’s eyes and she broke the intense stare to brush it away. “And I hate when it does that. So…” She took a deep breath and fixed her hair back into pouf and tail again. “It’s time for _me_ to make a change. Even if it’s small.” 

Genuine reasoning. Glimmer settled back in her chair. Now they were getting somewhere. “Mmhmm. And you’re on board with this, Catra? I mean, I don’t mind, and I’ll even cut her hair.”

“Well, I mean. It was _my_ idea to come talk to you.” Catra shrugged. “I think she’d look cute as a pixie.” She flicked a claw at Glimmer and grinned. “Kinda like you, really. Sparkles.”

“I am not a pixie.” _Just for that…_ She teleported to Gia’s makeshift barber shop, grabbed a pair of scissors and a comb, and popped back to her office. “I do have _some_ experience.”

“How much experience?” Adora asked, gripping her hair with both hands, suddenly and obviously less certain about this _plan_ of theirs. “I… maybe I should go see Gia.”

“Oh, no, no, it’s fine.” Glimmer examined the edges of the scissors, snipped a few times, and let her teeth show as she smirked. “I used to cut my dolls' hair all the time.”

“Er… um.” Adora began backing away, darting a look at Catra. “M-maybe… Gia?”

“Oh, no. You were so into this a moment ago, Adora,” Glimmer said, advancing on her, testing the snipping motion. “Lost your nerve?”

Adora coughed. “Maybe I should…”

“I promise I won’t _try_ to make a mess of it,” Glimmer said, rolling her eyes. “I wouldn’t do that. Who do you think does _my_ hair?”

“Explains a lot,” Catra mumbled.

“I can do _your_ hair, Catra,” Glimmer warned, turning an eye on her, pausing, and sitting on the edge of her desk. “You know… who _is_ doing your hair these days? You seem to like it short.”

“Er… this, um…” Catra coughed and straightened. “Sure I do. Less washing.” She fluffed at her short hair, hardly grown an inch since they’d rescued her. “But we’re talking about Adora’s. She’s looking for a change.”

“Yeah. I need a haircut.” Adora flicked a look from Catra back to Glimmer. “But maybe—”

Glimmer twirled the scissors around her finger, fumbled the catch, and grimaced when she poked herself with the sharp tips. “Ouch!”

Catra’s arms fell to her side, and she stood up straighter. “Yeah, I’m gonna have to side with Adora on this one.” Her eyes flicked from Adora’s to Glimmer. “I mean… you know… doll hair. Did you ever see her dolls when you were in Brightmoon?”

“Um… no…” Adora scooted back in her chair. “What did they look like, Glimmer?”

“Ah, well, Headless Harry was an accident, Scarface Sarah… that was a slip…” Glimmer pressed on, twirling the scissors and letting a bit of a manic note enter her voice. “No-nose Norah… well, I mean. It was a reeeally long nose.”

“Ahah, very funny, Glimmer,” Adora groaned, leaning farther back in her chair, away from the mania as Glimmer took another step forward, then another, the gleam in her eye growing as her smile got wider. “Aha! Yeah, very funny!”

One more step, and Adora toppled over backwards, landing with a thud and oof, hands gripping the sides of the chair hard enough to creak the plastic.

Immediately, Glimmer dropped the act and stooped to crouch beside her, spinning the scissors much more competently before offering them handle-first. “Go see Gia, you goof, if you really want to cut your hair.”

Catra burst out laughing, sliding down the wall and descending into mad giggles. “Ah! Perfect! Perfect!” The giggles died when Adora shot her a death-glare and growl, but only so she could purr, grinning. “I didn’t know you had it in you, Sparkles. Heck, _I_ almost believed that act. Really got the creepy manic gleam going.”

Adora took the scissors with a sheepish look, then the comb. “Yeah… really had me going for a moment, Glim.” She accepted the hand Glimmer offered and righted herself in the chair. “You been taking acting lessons from Double Trouble, too?”

Glimmer raised a brow.

“Hey, it’s one of my weaknesses, and they were laying low in the Fright Zone for a while.” Adora flicked her ponytail, settled back on the chair more confidently. “Got to talkin’ and… well… just kinda happened.”

“Double Trouble got pissed off that she was a terrible actress and said it was their duty to the _art_ to at least make her not suck at it.” Catra flicked her tail and grinned at the glower Adora shot her way. “What? It’s true.”

“Pft. Whatever. I _did_ get better.”

“After the third or fourth time you stormed off in a huff.”

“You did get better.” Glimmer returned to her desk and leaned against it, watching her two friends for a moment, studying Adora in particular. “You really want a haircut, though, don’t you?”

“I… do. Yes. That wasn’t acting.” Adora glanced aside at Catra. “We thought you could use a little Best Friend Squad fun. Just to remind you we’re still here.”

“And you didn’t rope in Bow?” Glimmer raised a brow. “I mean, I appreciate the thought. But I was hoping he’d swing by today.”

“He’s with Entrapta,” Catra said with a grunt and flick of her ears. “They’re throwing technobabble back and forth. It was honestly kinda painful to listen to.”

“Of course they are.” That explained the other half of her morning headache. Bow and Entrapta going hog-wild on tech made the missive make at least a little more sense. As if on cue, her monitor beeped, and an icon on her desk started glowing, indicating a new message. _And that’ll be them with another update._

“So…” Adora tapped a fist against her hip. “Where’s Gia?”

“She’s in New Thaymor. She and her family have their own lily pad.” Glimmer waved her off. “Go on, get your hair cut, and we can have a celebratory lunch or something when you get back.”

“Thanks!” Adora waved at Catra, then hesitated, glanced at Glimmer, and stopped. A moment later, she breathed and went to give Catra a light kiss on the lips. “Love you. See you soon.”

Catra stood there after she left, fingers touching her lips and darting from the door to Glimmer and back, her cheeks turning brighter red the longer Glimmer watched her.

“I saw you at the launch,” Glimmer said after she felt like Catra had suffered enough. “That’s not new to me.”

“We’re…” Catra coughed and cleared her throat. “Trying not to shock everyone.”

“Sure.” Glimmer raised a brow and sighed, scooting up to sit on her desk instead of leaning against it, and clasped her hands between her knees. “You’re in love with her. Why shouldn’t you share kisses?”

“Like you share with Bow, huh?”

Glimmer’s cheeks heated. “Yes. Like I share with—” She cut herself off and glowered at Catra. “You’re watching us?”

“Gah! No! Why would I want to watch that? Les. Bee. An.” Catra tapped her chest. “Or is that Adorian? Hum.” She pretended to consider that for a moment, tapping a finger against her shoulder. “Ah well. You smell like each other.”

“We do not!” The flush spread, and even her forehead felt hot.

“Mmm. Sure. Keep telling yourself that.” Catra tapped the side of her nose. “What is it Entrapta’s always saying? Data never lies?”

“Fine! So we kiss! So do you!” Glimmer jabbed a finger at her. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“Mmm. Nope. Nothing wrong with that. We’re just, like you, keeping it between us for now.” Catra tipped her head to the side, glancing past her. “That’s two messages now.”

“They can wait.” Glimmer seized the subject change like a life-preserver and steered even farther away from her private life. “I was surprised you didn’t go with Adora.”

“She can handle a haircut on her own. ‘Sides. She wanted it to be a surprise.” Catra grinned broadly. “Somehow, I think what she ends up with will be a surprise to her, too.”

“Hah. Probably.” Glimmer brushed her hair away from her eyes and leaned back on the desk more casually, covering up the message indicator display with a hand. “So why _are_ you still sticking around?”

“You. And the second part of our master plan.” Catra winked and flicked an ear. “You wanna tell me what was freaking you out last night?”

“Nothing. I wasn’t freaking out last night.”

“Ah-ah. Do I have to break out the Entrapta quote again?”

“Were you spying on me?”

“Mmm. No. Adora and I were having a talk in the Heart Grove, up high, after dinner.” Catra pointed up. “In the tree limbs. We were high enough to see your, um… office tent.”

“And what were you doing up so high? That’s dangerous!”

“It was not. We never fall, Sparkles.” Catra flicked a finger at her. “Day before launch, when you caught us, we were just running an old chase. We used to have fun doing that, and it’s not like we were gonna be able to out here.”

“In the Horde?” Glimmer settled in more comfortably. This was a rare opening up for Catra, and a glimpse into their lives before Adora joined the rebellion. “I thought… you know.”

“Not all the memories we have there are terrible, or of me being terrible, Spar—Glimmer.” Catra sighed and looked away. “We had fun. Climbing, racing, chasing each other. She was almost as good at it as I was. She had to be to keep up. And she put in the effort. Nobody else did. Nobody else cared enough to try and keep up.”

She met Glimmer’s eyes again after a moment of silence. “It was still hard on both of us, understand. The happy memories are rare. But they are there. That’s why we stayed to help those that called it home…” Catra shrugged. “Make it a home again.”

“I had wondered. A lot of people wondered why She-Ra wanted to stay in the Fright Zone.” Glimmer moved back around her desk and turned on the monitor, removing the message light indicator from the desk and displaying two new messages. One from Entrapta, and one from Bow. The latter just had ‘Translation’ as a subject line.

She didn’t want to read more distressing news about their ultimate destination. Or have it in Bow’s logical, clear writing. With Entrapta… it was hard to tell if it was worst case or merely a misunderstanding of the terminology she was using, or the complex mathematical figures just _seemed_ dire.

Catra watched her, studying her the entire time Glimmer was staring at the two messages with glowing red dots next to them. Urgent.

“Well… now you know.” 

Glimmer hesitated, finger hovering over the off key again on her monitor, then sat back in her chair, letting her arms flop to her side. _I don’t want to read this alone._ She also couldn’t wait for Bow to get done if he thought it was urgent. It might be something to do with the ship.

A small part of her knew that if it was, there’d be screaming. Or just silence.

“You gonna pretend we _didn’t_ see you freaking out last night?” Catra raised a brow.

“No. I’m not going to pretend.” She waved the woman over and sat up, touching the Translation message. “I could use another pair of eyes on this.”

Catra smiled and pushed off the wall and took a seat on the desk. “Sure.”

* * *

“Hey, where can I find Gia?” Adora asked one of the villagers engaged in weaving some fronds together into a mat that looked suspiciously similar to some of the mats she could see floating out on the lake with their own little ecosystems of plant life growing on them. “Glimmer asked… I mean, I’d like to see her about a haircut.”

“Of course, She-Ra.” The man stood up and pointed with a bow. “Gia would be delighted to style the hair of the Hero of the Heart. I can show you the way.”

 _Yeah, and_ that’s _why I want to cut it. Maybe you’ll all stop looking at me like that._ Adora kept the words contained and smiled brightly. “Thank you.”

The village, and it really was a village growing up in the middle of another one of the massive chambers that Horde Prime used for… who knew what. None of them had the same layout as the others, all of them apparently serving different purposes. Some had been full of pods of dead or dying versions of Horde Prime, all old and decrepit, and likely had died once the flow of nutrient paste stopped.

This chamber was filled with the ship’s water reservoir, replacing the nutrient paste processing machinery, and it made a lake easily the size of Thaymor’s lands scattered with massive lily pads whose central blooms were flower buildings easily large enough to house a family.

There were hundreds of them on the artificial lake, not all of them nearly so close as the central cluster of them. Some of them were far enough away in the hundred acre lake that they were little more than green and pink smudges in the misty air.

How they stayed afloat, even the ones lashed to the column Adora had no idea. It was likely some extension of the magic of the vessel bonded into the plants.

She followed her guide through the village, crossing from lily pad to lily pad with ease, as the ones clustered around the central platform were all touching one-another, getting out deeper and deeper into the lake, until the curved bottom of the massive vessel disappeared into the deepest blue Adora had ever seen.

“We’re still getting the pads arranged,” her guide said as he paused in the middle of one to look around, lips pursed and hand shading his eyes against the glowing First Ones lanterns hanging from the support struts above. “My apologies. Gia’s pad must have drifted during launch.”

“Well… did it have a sign or anything?” Adora glanced around the pad they were on, taking in the garden planted around the base of the teardrop shaped ‘house’, and a sign lay in the grass below a windowsill, apparently toppled over. “How… do the petals have windows?”

Before he could answer, she waved her hand in the air, dismissing it. Plumeria had petal houses and windows, too. “You know what, plant magic. Nevermind.”

“Well, yes.” The tall faun tapped his four fingers on his chin as he looked around, despite all the petal houses and lily pads looking more or less alike. The residents likely hadn’t had enough time of their own to customize things. “There should be signs, but I guess they didn’t get strapped down.”

“Did things shake a lot down here?”

“Oh yes. This close to the engines, we had quite a few waves. Nothing we couldn’t handle, though.” He gave her a thumbs up and continued looking around, his floppy ears twitching as he muttered about signs.

It was a shame Mermista had declined the offer, but Selenium really did need help rebuilding after being the target of _concentrated_ Hordak forces, and of Hordak himself, during the height of the war.

Adora wandered over to the sign fallen from the window sill and picked it up, brushing the dirt off the edge. “Gia & Trevor.” That last was a name from the Horde’s humans. Unusual.

“Hey, are homes also where people do business?” She called out to her guide.

“Oh! Yes, we don’t really have enough space to have shops _and_ homes.” He was crouched at the side of the lily pad, fishing around for something in the water. “Aha!”

A pylon attached to a buoy flipped up from under the edge of the pad and nearly brained the faun, but when it stabilized, it was nearly an exact copy—if wetter—of the one she held in her hands. She spun it around to show him hers.

“I guess, er… tada!” 

Adora laughed and waved. “Thank you!”

Now, all she had to do was decide on a new look. Adora set the sign back on the sill and stared through the window at the interior, half barber shop and half residence, and at the paintings and portraits of blank faces with different styles of hair on them.

Contrasted with her reflection staring back at her. The same red jacket. The same white jumper with gray tights. The same Adora that had woken up a year and change ago and not known she’d betray everything she knew.

It _was_ time for a new look.

“Just… need to pick one.”


	6. Haircuts and Hairy Planets

“Hello?” Adora called out, touching the ‘Open’ sign on the door handle and gently pushing the door open. This was someone’s home…  _ and _ a business. The rules of etiquette that Glimmer had pressed on her over the year-long span of her time with the rebellion itched at her sensibilities. And Glimmer’s ever-present back of the head smack.

As soon as she set foot inside, she cringed, expecting Glimmer to smack her.

Instead, all that came was a chime followed by a bright woman’s voice calling out, “Be right with you!”

“No rush,” Adora called back, folding her arms over her stomach and resolving not to touch anything and only look at the portraits hung up of various hairstyles. Short styles, long styles, curly styles, straight styles. There were even a few toys sitting on shelves, neatly organized, as if she’d walked into Bow’s past.

Somewhere deeper inside, the sound of small feet pounded, and a frustrated grunt from a young woman, a laugh from a man.

_ Glimmer did say Gia  _ and  _ her family…  _

She barely had time to think the thought before a faun burst out of another room and ran right into her knees, a blur of brown fur and horns and curly blond hair. “Oof! Wow, haha!”

“See-Ra! See-Ra!”

“Ahh. Haha! No. That’s Mermista, little faun,” Adora said with a chuckle and a pat against their budding horns. “What’s your name?”

Before she could get an answer, a female faun with a strikingly familiar face stormed around the corner, followed by a human male, the latter laughing and the former with a stormy expression.

“Gera! You—” The mother stopped short, hands clapping over her mouth, her straight brown hair flying, purple eyes the so different from her daughter’s widening in surprise. “Oh my goodness! She-Ra!”

“Adora, please,” she said, grinning and patting the little girl on the head. “I’m just Adora today. You must be Gia.” 

“Um yes. Yes ma’am,” Gia said, holding out a hand towards her daughter. “Gera, come here!”

“Mommy, See-Ra!”

“Yes, sweetie. Stay with daddy for now, okay?” Gia passed her daughter back to the human male, who picked her up and blew a raspberry against her throat, drawing a stern look from Gia that flashed back to excitement when she turned back around. “We hadn’t expected to see you so soon.”

“Well, I hadn’t, either to be honest,” Adora said, running a hand through her hair and dropping a hand to her hip… and the scissors in her pocket. “Oh! Glimmer asked me to return these to you.”

“Oh?” Gia accepted the scissors, blinked, and shook her head. “I thought I heard a spell. But…” She folded her arms over her chest, scissor tips tapping against her shoulder, pondering Adora. “Why did she need them? I’d have been glad to give her a touch-up.”

“For a joke,” Adora grumbled, flicking a look at the human male, somewhat familiar-looking, but not terribly, and recalled herself to her task, rubbing the back of her neck. “I’m looking for a haircut, though, and I’m… trying to decide what I’d like.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place!” Gia laughed and glanced back at Trevor, giving a flick of her ear to her mate. “Trevor, why don’t you take Gera out for a bit to see her friends and maybe get some dinner?”

“Sure, love.” He hefted Gera up to cradle in one arm and kissed her, then Gia, on the cheek. “Nice to meetcha, Adora. Again.”

“Wait, what?” Adora studied him, squinting as she tried to remember where she’d seen his face before. He looked so familiar, but it was so faded that she only had an inkling that she’d seen it once.

“Ah! I used to be a force captain.” Trevor tapped his brow in a rough salute. “I defected when you were a child, but I did lead a few training classes with you. And, long story short, I fell in love, watching her practicing her dance on a scouting mission, and never looked back.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Gia said with a chuckle. “But that’s the gist well enough.”

“I… see.” Adora flicked a look between the man, woman, and child. She could see him in Gera, in Gera’s blue eyes, and her curling blonde hair, so different from her mother’s brown hair and “Oh! I see.”

“Was glad to hear it when you got out, Adora,” Trevor said, clapping a hand on her shoulder as he passed. “Maybe catch up later.”

“Um… yeah.” Adora watched him for a moment before he disappeared around the house. She dismissed it from her mind with a wave of her hand. “Anyway… I’m… not sure what I want, Gia. I’ve been thinking about a change ever since the war ended, but…” she gestured at herself. “This is all I’ve ever really known.”

“Mm.” Gia gave her a critical look, one hand tugging lightly at the tip of her ear. “Let your hair down, Adora. Let me see what we have to work with, and I can make some suggestions.” She waited while Adora did so, still tugging at her ear, and spun a finger in a circle. “Let me see.”

Feeling more than a little silly, Adora turned slowly, flexing her hair tie between her fingers, nervous all over again about making such a big change. Even if it was a small change. “What do you think?”

“I think… we have more than enough material to work with,” Gia said, letting go of her ear and waving at the wall of portraits. “It all comes down to what you want to do. Do you want to look more glamorous? More striking? Emphasize your eyes? Your jaw? Let your ears show even with your hair down?”

“I…” Adora flicked a look from one portrait to another, not sure what she was looking for in each of them, but always seeming drawn back to the short hairstyles. She  _ liked _ how Catra looked. It might not have been her choice at first, something that Prime had imposed on her, but it had grown on her over time. “I don’t know. Short? Maybe?”

“Mmhmm. Come, have a seat and we can play around a bit before we start cutting to see what you like.” Gia patted the back of a swivel chair surrounded by mirrors set into a cubby. “We have some time before my next appointment, so we can get things right for you.”

“Oh! Should…” Adora sat, feeling even more sheepish. She’d never even been  _ shopping _ before, let alone for herself. Everything had been provided for her as a Princess. Even the dress she’d worn to Princess Prom. “Should I have made one? An appointment?”

“Not necessarily,” Gia said as she spun the chair around and ratcheted up the seat a few inches until her face was level with Adora’s in the mirror. “Now. You said short, so…”

It was strange for her to let another person, someone besides Catra, touch her hair in anything even approaching an intimate situation. And it was intimate. Gentle and… strange. But also not. Gia’s fingers were quick and strong as she gathered Adora’s hair up into a bun at the nape of her neck and pinned it with a clip, then started covering bits of her face with the flat of her hand and describing what various hairstyles and cuts would do for her.

“Well, you have a well defined… everything,” Gia was saying when Adora snapped back to paying attention. “Cheeks. Jaw. Neck. Collar bones. Longer hair tends to emphasize your neck and shoulders, and shorter your jaw and cheeks. And shortest…” She covered Adora’s ears with both of her hands, lifting the hair below her ears up. “Emphasizes your eyes, cheeks, jaw… it’s a bold cut if you’re confident about how you look.”

_ Catra is absolutely that. _

Adora toyed with that idea, staring at her face from three angles as Gia held her hands in place. “A little higher.”

An idea began forming, an image of herself with shorter hair. Not  _ Catra’s _ , but… “Backwards just a little. More on top? Just a bit for… bangs? Is that the right word?”

“That is indeed the right word.” Gia grinned and removed her hands from Adora’s ears. “I think I can see something that would work very well for you. If it doesn’t work, we can try again in a few months.” 

“Well, I’ve had  _ this _ hair for forever. A few months to get it back isn’t much.”

She laughed and fuzzled Adora’s hair. “Let’s get you washed and conditioned, then we can start.”

* * *

Catra traced her fingers over the image, careful not to let her claws come out despite her wanting to. The image was terrifying. “ _ This  _ is our first stop? You didn’t say we were going to the First Ones’ darkest nightmares.”

On the picture, three shattered remnants of a moon orbited in a loose cloud of other debris, densely packed around the still-glowing core. The surface that she could see was covered with ruins: broken, toppled First Ones ruins. The angular constructions were hard to mistake for anything else but the ancient civilization’s architecture.

She’d seen enough of it in the last six months to know it at a glance.

“It is.” 

“What happened to it?” Catra glanced at the text below, reading it again, but not really finding anything in Bow’s translation that would indicate what had happened to it. Only that they were getting energy and magical readings from each of the three fragments  _ and _ the core, wildly fluctuating. Even she could tell that, and she didn’t know what the abbreviations for the readings meant. “Are the fuel crystals there?”

“Yes.” Glimmer touched a few controls on her desk, drawing up a list of readings with more detailed information, pointing at lines for magical spectra as well as the spectral lines for fuel crystals. “There’s both magic  _ and _ fuel crystals there. We don’t know where the first one’s coming from.”

“It’s a First Ones’ colony,” Catra said with a sniff. “Of course it’d have magic. It was their electricity.”

“But it’s been abandoned for at  _ least _ a thousand years. We don’t even know when the moon cracked open or how.” Glimmer poked the magical spectral line and brought up a time-graph. “It doesn’t have a  _ heart _ . See? Any magic should have long ago petered out. There’s nothing to replenish it.”

“The First Ones did have batteries,” Catra said with a raised brow. “This is a mining depot, right? They musta had a lot of that. And without the mining equipment running, they’d have a lot more to use.”

“Or…” Glimmer poked at the screen again. “It’s being used as a base.”

“That why you were freaking out?” Catra sat back and surveyed the larger picture on the monitor. “That it might be a base?”

“Maybe. Pirates, rebels… remnants of the First Ones.” Glimmer shook her head slowly. “Horde Prime was thorough, but nobody can wipe out an entire species so completely when it’s spread across an entire galactic.” 

Catra grinned. “You sure about that, Sparkles? I don’t think that’s the right word.”

She poked at the notes again. “Galaxy? Fine. Whatever. Anyway, Adora is proof enough of that.”

“Hm. True enough.” Catra scratched at her jaw for a moment. It could be Adora’s people. The portal that had brought her there couldn’t have reached far outside the dimension of Despondos. Not  _ and _ be targeted specifically to a single child. “Think a portal could reach here from Despondos?”

“Good question. I’ll have to ask Entrapta and Hordak.” Glimmer made a note on her computer, then pulled out a pad of paper and wrote it down there, too. “Anything you can think of?”

“Well… pirates  _ did _ exist in Prime’s rule. Found that little tidbit out from Hordak long time ago. Slip of the tongue.” Catra grinned and examined her claws for a moment. It’d been easy to manipulate him when he wasn’t in a rage, to slip suggestions in and have him believe them. That had likely been his fault. A degrading mental capacity with tendencies towards rage leading to a degradation of body. “Not many. Even Hordak was brutal to pirates.”

“I imagine it was as dangerous for them as it was for rebels like the Star Siblings,” Glimmer murmured, dropping back into her chair. “I wish we could contact them, but that quadrant has been out of contact for two months. Clones self-destructed all the equipment they were on when they lost their planets.”

“Really? It wasn’t just Cindella?”

“I knew you hadn’t read the reports,” Glimmer groaned. “Why not? You had months.”

Catra dismissed the comment with a sniff. She had plenty of time to read the reports, and the time she’d spent in the Fright Zone reconnecting with some of the inhabitants there, reawakening old friendships and making what amends she could. That had been far more important to her than  _ reports _ .

She didn’t know if Adora’d kept up with them, but after Catra fell asleep--both before they started having sex and after--she didn’t know what Adora got up to. She seemed to always need less sleep than Catra. Something to do with She-Ra no doubt.

Or she was pushing herself again.

“More important things were going on,” Catra said after sharing a look with Adora. “Like rebuilding homes. Trying to… you know.  _ Not _ be public enemy number one.”

Glimmer rolled her eyes and fixed her with a flat stare. “Yeah. I can see that being a full time job.”

_ Let it go. _ It was hard to pull the quip back in, but she did and focused on the screen again. “Did the clones really self-destruct?”

Glimmer wanted to continue the confrontation, clearly straining against the quip, but she let it go, too and turned back to the monitor, tapping out commands. She had gotten a lot of practice working with Prime and Horde controls in the last few months, and it was showing.

“Yes. It’s happening everywhere. Or  _ was _ , at least.” 

After a moment, a timeline popped up, indicating the last transmission from known planets. Almost two months ago, there’d been a huge surge of inactivity. Then the entire network went dark, as far as they were aware, when the last node linking them to the rest of the galaxy was lost. 

“Comm nodes being knocked out left and right. We’ve lost contact with most of the rest of the galaxy.”

“Most?”

“Almost all of it. We’re only in contact with two other worlds close by that had rebellions flare up, and Netossa and Spinnerella are leading talks with them.” Glimmer shook her head slowly. “Spinny is much better at diplomacy than I am.”

“No surprise there.”

Glimmer gave her a gimlet-eyed glare and turned back to her monitor. “Anyway… That’s another reason for us being out here. Trying to find  _ anyone _ we can get in touch with.”

“Makes sense. How far is the range on a comm node, anyway?” Catra tapped the monitor, navigating the somewhat familiar interface to find the starmap again indicating their course and destinations. At least Hordak and Prime used similar control schemes in their tech.

“Not sure exactly. Ours was damaged in the transformation process from mostly metal hull to… metal, tree hybrid.” Glimmer pulled up more notes, schematics and plans from Entrapta. “She says, right now, we might be lucky to get seventy light years out of it.”

“And the nearest inhabited world from the moon is…”

“Sixty. Small colony, according to Prime’s database. A slave world dedicated to gathering rare minerals for his fleets.” More notes and some images of the world appeared. “Cardonis. No natives, just a disparate group of races from other subjugated planets living in a moving dome. The last communique we have from them is they pushed their clone overseers out airlocks and let them suffocate. The clones on the comm node in orbit self-destructed about a week later.”

A ghastly progression of images of messages from the clone commander aboard to Prime in increasingly panicked and rough-looking shape flickered across the screen as Glimmer swiped at them to show the story. In the final one, the clone commander had been replaced with a battered looking lesser clone, the green gone from their eyes, replaced by a sickly yellow.

“Nutrient paste starvation. Their next shipment never arrived.” Catra sat back again and tapped her fingers on her thigh. “And from our ultimate destination?”

“There’s one of the rebel worlds where the Star Siblings instigated a rebellion just fifty light years from it. Almost two hundred from the moon.” Glimmer touched a small glowing circle on an almost direct line from their first stop to their next destination. “Green. A jungle planet.”

“Green?” Catra snorted a laugh. “I mean, descriptive, but hardly…” She trailed off as Glimmer brought up a picture. Both the  _ star _ and the planet were green. “Ah. Okay. Yeah, I get it. Very funny.”

“So that’s our full mission profile. Which you would  _ know _ if you read the reports.” Glimmer poked at the monitor and reset it back to her original report. “Which is why this new information is freaking me out a bit. We don’t know what we’re going to encounter at this supposedly  _ empty _ mining station.”

“Yeah, and that debris field around the moon is going to make navigation even harder.” Catra flicked a finger at the indistinct cloud of debris obscuring most of the fractured planetoid. “Too bad we didn’t bring Darla.”

“She was needed to reach out to the closer rebellious planets.” Glimmer’s lips pursed, and she added, “And our backup.”

“Yeah, I know. I did read that report. Was kinda…” There were good memories on that little ship. Her first time reconnecting with Adora. The first time she’d acknowledged that the pain in her chest she’d felt every time she’d fought Adora hadn’t been anger or fear, but loss. Grief. And she didn’t want to face it again. “Never mind.”

“I understand.” Glimmer turned off the monitor and rubbed at her eyes. “Hopefully we get more information. But thanks for looking over the data with me. I feel better, even just looking at it with someone else.”

“Of course, Sparkles.” Catra stretched and rolled backward off the desk to land on her feet by the desk smoothly, grinning as Glimmer growled at her. “Wanna go see what kinda trouble Adora found?” And what her hair looked like.

* * *

Snip snip.

Twitch.

Snip snip snip.

More of Adora’s past fell away in dirty gold strands, each one giving her face a different profile when she glanced left, straining not to turn her head and stare at what Gia was cutting away behind her.

Snip snip.

Twitch.

“Getting closer,” Gia murmured, her tender fingers turning Adora’s head ever-so-slightly right. “How are you liking it so far?”

_ If I could get a look… _ All she could see was what was right in front of her. The pouf was gone, as was most of the long hair that had gone into making it. In fact, most of her long hair was now no longer than the width of her palm, shorter along the sides and back, almost shaved up the back of her neck into longer and longer strands that Gia was even now drawing up and measuring by eye, teasing with the comb, and snipping seemingly inconsequential amounts of hair from it.

“I… like it?” The face looking back at her  _ was _ still hers, but her jaw looked stronger, her cheeks more prominent, and her forehead seemed… smaller. Still wet, the longer hair on the top of her head was a touch spiky, sticking together as it laid down in clumps, darker than she was used to seeing at the roots, the rest of it bleached from months in the sun working, running, and chasing. “It’s different.”

“It is!” Gia laughed and took her hands away. “Give it a proper look, there’s still a little trimming to do on the edges, but I think even that could be left on its own. A little imperfection is beautiful.”

“I see you’ve talked to Entrapta.”

“I have, yes. She was curious why people cut their hair.”

“Of course she was…” Adora glanced left, looking at her profile and leaning forward to look at her whole profile from back to front, the way the shape of it looked much more like Scorpia’s, but not quite. Longer and not shaved along the sides, her darker blonde roots showing more prominently there, a contrast to the almost white atop her head.

Given enough time out in the sun, it would all bleach again.

“I do like it.” She ran a hand along the nape of her neck and shivered as the stiff hairs prickled against her palm and her neck at the same time. Catra was going to have a blast with that. “Is… there anything you can do about the coloring? I miss when it was all the same color.”

“Well, it  _ wasn’t _ all the same color,” Gia said, flicking a finger against the back of her neck. “It just looked like it was all the same color. This darker blonde was protected from sun damage.” She ran a finger over the top of Adora’s head. “And this lost a lot of color from sun damage.”

“Well… yeah. I mean… can it all be dark blonde or all be light?”

“It can, but you’ll have to fix it again later.” Gia cocked her head, flicking her ears. “Besides, the contrast looks really nice, I think.”

“It looks like I dipped my head in frosting.”

Gia laughed softly and brushed her fingers over the top of Adora’s head, sending loose a cascade of short clippings. “Well, you did. A frosting of sunlight! Oh, and you will want to take a shower soon. Otherwise you’ll be itchy all day.”

“And… touching up?” Adora asked, turning her head this way and that. There wasn’t much she could see that was wrong with her hair… other than it being so very, very different. Her head felt lighter, too, as she turned left and right, only the hair on top of her head shifting along with her bangs.

“A little to the bangs. Maybe a little feathering… making sure that I’ve got everything even on the sides and back…” Gia brushed her fingers up and down the sides of Adora’s head, looking past her into the mirror, eyes critical, professional, fingers pressing lightly as she turned Adora’s head again left and right. “Yes. Just a few snips left. Just a little more twitching.”

Adora grinned and settled back in the chair. “I think I can handle that.”

A knock sounded at the door, bare seconds ahead of Catra stumbling in, hand over her stomach, her features green and the reason for her upset stomach just behind her.

Glimmer’s eyes flew to Adora, and she gasped. “Adora! ”

“Welcome,” Gia said with a laugh, snipping briefly at Adora’s hair, then stopping and turning. “I’m afraid I’m seeing someone right now, but—” She stiffened, standing straighter as she spied Catra hanging on to uprightness by the strength of her grip on a table’s edge. 

Catra grinned and tried to smile through her obvious nausea. “Hey, Adora. Lookin’ great.”

“C-Catra.” Gia’s voice creaked as her arms crossed over her stomach, scissors falling to her feet. “Wh-what are you doing here?”

“She’s a part of this expedition,” Glimmer said calmly, taking a deep breath and stepping between Gia and Catra. “She’s been a part of the rebellion for months.”

“I heard…” Gia backed up half a step, putting Adora between her and Catra. “I heard… she—you were still in the Fright Zone.”

“I was with her in the Fright Zone.” Adora said. “We were helping a place that needed love and caring, Gia. More than anyplace else on Etheria, it needed to see what the Rebellion was all about.”

“She fought the rebellion!” Gia hissed. “For a year!”

Glimmer nodded somberly, her hand on Catra’s shoulder as she struggled with the remnants of teleportation nausea. “She did, but what was done can’t be undone, Gia. It can only be learned from and atoned for.”

Gia closed her eyes, fingers clenching into a fist against her hip. “My sister lost her home first. Then me and my husband lost ours.” Her jaw clenched tighter. “I lost  _ friends _ to the Horde.”

“I’m sorry.” Catra’s fingers tightened against the table, but her claws didn’t come out. “I… have nothing else to offer.” She opened her mouth to say more, but looked aside, her ears flat a shimmer in her eyes betraying the tears that wanted to come, that she held back. “Except my service. It’s all I have.”

“My  _ husband _ was one of you. Why couldn’t you have left, too? Adora left. Trevor left. You stayed. Why?” Gia’s entire body trembled as she took a deep breath and let it out, bringing a touch of calm and stilling the shakes. “Why?”

“That…” Catra shook her head slowly. 

“That is the past, Gia. It can’t be undone,” Glimmer said softly, tightening her hold on Catra’s shoulder. “The reasoning of the past can’t be undone, either. The hurts. All we can do, after a war, is try to look past them and see the good in those that remain. Those that try to show their good.”

“I’m trying,” Catra murmured, rubbing her arm and looking lost, staring down at her feet. “I’m sorry.”

“Regardless of how you’ve changed, Catra…” Gia closed her eyes and turned away, rubbing at her forehead. “I’m… not ready to accept your apology. Please wait outside, Catra.”

“Gia—”

“It’s fine, Adora,” Catra said, cutting her off and rubbing at her stomach. “Need some fresh air anyway.” She hesitated just before she pushed off of the table. “Looks great, by the way.” Her cheeks flushed, she smiled brightly, half-reached for her, flicked a look at the mirror, and dropped her hand.

Adora’s heart flopped in her chest and her cheeks answered with their own heat, her own automatic smile, wanting to say more, but conscious of Gia in the room. “Thanks.”

“What?” Gia stared at the closed door, her hand over her heart. “What was that?”

Glimmer harumphed and folded her arms over her chest, glowering at Adora. “Might as well just out with it.  _ Like I’ve been saying you should do. _ ” 

The urge to divert and change the subject rose and sank as Glimmer arched a brow, clearly preparing for any one of a dozen counter-arguments she’d tried in the past. All of which would make the truth clearer.

“Fine. You’re right. Alright? Just…” Adora shook her head slowly. “Alright, yes…” She sucked in a breath, held it, and let it out with the words, “I love her.” She coughed and started to stand up, but Gia’s hand tightened on her shoulder and held her in place. “What?” She brushed Gia’s hand away and spun around in the chair, facing her. “It’s private, Gia. It’s ours. It’s not something we’re ready to share. Were ready to share,” she amended with a grimace.

“It’s also kind of a long, sordid story, from what I understand,” Glimmer said with a sigh. “I’ve tried. You won’t get any further.”

“I think… maybe I need to hear this long sordid story.” Gia nodded to the door. “I’m not the only one that doesn’t trust her. And for good reason.”

“I know…” Adora swallowed, looking into the eyes of a woman who’d seen her home destroyed by Prime, who’d seen multiple attacks by the Horde, who had daily feared for her husband’s life. “I’m sorry, Gia. It’s not my place to tell. Not without her.”

“You’re really in love with her.” She didn’t say it as a question, but musingly, her eyes on Adora’s. After a moment she bent to pick up the scissors and stared at them, then at Adora. “Nobody knows that, Adora. I didn’t know that, and nobody I know knows that.”

“I didn’t know that, either,” Glimmer muttered. “Until about two months ago.”

“We’re keeping it private,” Adora grumbled, folding her arms over her chest and looking at herself in the mirror. “Somewhat private.”

“Adora.” Glimmer spun the chair around and poked a finger at her nose. “You’re not going to be able to hide this. You’re not  _ just _ Adora. You’re She-Ra, and you need to recognize what that means now, during peacetime. You’re a Princess. A public figure.”

“It’s an empty title! I don’t even have a people or a land to rule!” Adora shook her head vehemently. “I’m fine being She-Ra. It’s what I do. But the rest?”

“True. You might not have a land to rule, but you still have responsibilities, and people are going to want to know why you love Catra.”

“It’s hard for us to talk about it,” Adora murmured, brushing Glimmer’s hand aside and leaning back in the chair. “I don’t even know where to start, Glim.”

“It’s hard for my husband, too,” Gia said and tapped the comb against Adora’s ear. “But it will need to be said, Adora. Sometime. He’s been better since he’s been able to talk about his experiences. Don’t let it fester.”

“It’s not just my story to tell.” Adora closed her eyes and shook her head. “It’s not… hearing it from me won’t help, Gia. You’ll wonder. You need to see it in her. What I see, and saw, in her.” She took a breath and met Gia’s eyes. “All I can say is that I love her, Gia. I have since before I knew what love meant.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This might be the last chapter for a while. I've got another story I'm publishing at the same time on another site that's taking up a lot of editing time. My apologies to those of you reading.


	7. Facing the Past

The villagers of the Rebellion walked past her cautiously. They knew who she was. There wasn’t anybody who didn’t know who she was. All they did was not pay attention to her, though. They didn’t throw rotten fruit, they didn’t spit at her. They didn’t do anything she’d have expected Horde soldiers to do to prisoners.

They glowered at her, on occasion, but they didn’t talk to her.

That was fine. That wasn’t new.

The lily pad was comfortable under her feet, cool and firm, and when she settled her fingertips on it, she could feel the movement of other people on the pad as subtle shifts in the way the plant’s surface tremored on the water, sending ripples out.

She couldn’t tell anything useful from it, but she knew she wasn’t alone. In the Fright Zone, that had usually been enough to stay safe from anyone except Shadow Weaver… that woman never let her feet touch the ground if she had an ounce of spare magic.

The best thing about all the sloshing water around her was that she couldn’t hear it while Adora told them why she should be trusted. She didn’t want to listen to the reasons.

She felt it, too, when Adora came to the door. It had only been a few minutes of indistinct murmuring, of which she could only catch a word here or there. She knew that gait. The quiet half-shuffle.

Adora was tired, and it showed on her face when she stepped outside, her blue eyes… not stormy, but hooded and darker as she glanced down to where Catra was sitting. “You okay?”

“Could ask you the same question,” Catra said softly, reaching up, hesitating, then took Adora’s hand in hers and scooted over. “Have a sit.”

More talking started up inside before Adora closed the door. Glimmer and Gia talking in hushed whispers that made Adora’s cheeks heat to hear.

“What was that all about in there?”

A shake of her head was all she got in answer for a moment, Adora’s hand shifting automatically to her ponytail, stopping when she found only short hairs, and dropped to sit on the pad, sending out an especially energetic ripple.

“Remember… that thing we talked about? After Glimmer caught us?” Adora thumped her head against the pink wall of the house, staring up into the artificial sky, foggy above and shining with a soft white radiance. “About us?”

She could hardly forget. Talking about going  _ public _ with their relationship. Enough of the rebellion’s soldiery hated or distrusted her already, and the anger in Gia’s eyes had only driven home just how much and how far that had spread through the commoners of the kingdoms she’d attacked.

Raids she’d planned and executed. Prisoners she’d taken. Homes she’d destroyed. And the fear she’d instilled. All of that was in Gia’s eyes. Accusation and distrust of her defection.

Her hand started to shake again, and she clenched her fist, forcing it back down again.  _ Not here! Not here! Please, not here! _ She clenched Adora’s hand more tightly, drawing on her presence to keep her grounded, pushing away the thought that she might have once seen Gia running away from her and laughed at the sight.

“Adora!” A man’s voice Catra didn’t recognize called out, followed immediately by a child’s ‘See-Ra’ came just before a blue-eyed, brown-furred blur plowed into Adora’s side, laughing.

“Trevor!” Adora laughed and knuckled the child’s head gently, her mood shifting instantly from dour to joyous. “Hey there, Gera.”

“Trevor?” Catra blinked and stared up at the tall human holding a woven sack of fruits and vegetables over his shoulder. She recognized him from some of the reports in Hordak’s systems. Reports on other traitors she’d found while looking for leads and leverage to use against the other force captains. “Captain… Trevor?”

“Not anymore, Catra,” he said, his tone unchanging, still happy and light. “Good to see you finally got your head screwed on right.”

“Heh. Just about had it unscrewed for good before that happened.” Catra relaxed again, forcing herself to match Adora’s easy posture and good cheer, and let her hand go. “I… read your file.”

“Not surprising. Did they get my good side in the surveillance footage?” Trevor asked, grinning and turning his head to the side, grinning not unlike Sea Hawk.

“No idea. What’s the  _ good _ side of a guy’s face?” Catra snorted, but tried a smile to take away some of the insult.

“Catra, this is Gera. Gia’s and Trevor’s daughter. Say hi, troublemaker.” Adora waved the little girl’s hand for her, grinning brightly.

“Hi,” Catra and Gera said at the same time, Catra’s hand rising automatically to wave back.

“Wait…” Catra froze, looking between Gera and Trevor, then to the door. “You… defected to Thaymor?”

“Yeah. I figure they thought I died for a few years on a scouting mission.” Trevor shook his head and sat heavily on the lily pad, sending a ripple through it that just about tossed Gera, prodding at Adora’s short hair, off her feet. He caught her and hugged her into his lap. “But no. I… found peace, Catra. And the love of my life.”

Catra couldn’t help it. She glanced aside at Adora and found her smiling back. When she jerked her attention back around to Trevor, he was studying her with a thoughtful expression. She couldn’t meet his eyes. Not for long. He’d done what she should have.

The tremor in her fingers started up again as she stared down at them, the looming clouds in her thoughts sparking with old grief, old self-hate, old memories of convincing herself late into the night that she hated Adora for leaving her.

Of crying herself to sleep when it didn’t work. The memories of whispering, ‘Just let me hate you!’

“Baby girl, go get Queen Glimmer,” Trevor said gently to Gera. “Tell her her friends need to go back home.”

“I—” Catra started to protest, but he shook his head before she could even finish the first thought.

He held up a finger until the door closed behind Gera again. “Catra. I’ve been where you are right now. I didn’t defect and immediately get healed. I did things, Catra. I believed in the Horde. In the plan for  _ peace _ . I did things I can never forgive myself for.” Trevor prodded her knee with a finger and raised his chin. “But I get by. Gera and Gia are my lights in the dark. They keep me in the here and now.”

Catra didn’t miss the not-so-subtle shift of his attention from her to Adora. He wanted her to see.

“Take care of her, Adora,” Trevor said, slinging the sack over his shoulder again and pushing himself up just as the door opened again to Glimmer and Gia, little Gera peering out around her mother’s legs. “If you want to talk, you know where to find me.”

“Trevor?” Gia asked, her eyes flickering from him to Catra and back.

“It’s fine, love. I’ll tell you later.”

Glimmer sighed and rubbed at her brow after the three of them disappeared back inside. “Gera said you were ready to go home?”

Adora snorted and glanced aside at Catra, demured after only a moment, and nodded. “To our room, Glimmer. Please.” She took Catra’s hand again and kissed the back of it. “Just for a little while.”

“Yeah.” Catra flicked a look at a couple on the next pad over whispering and talking to each other, looking at them. Almost, she wanted to pull the hand free, but the moment she started thinking it, the shakes started again and so did the flurry of painful memories rushing just under the surface. “The quick way, Sparkles.”

Glimmer raised a brow, but didn’t argue, instead crouching in front of them and settling her hands on their knees. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” Catra took a deep breath and readied herself for the sudden shift of balance and the maddening vertigo of moving without moving, and held onto Adora’s hand more tightly. Her anchor and her pillar as space shifted around her. “Ugh…”

But they were sitting in the hallway in front of their room when she opened her eyes, Glimmer watching her with… concern in her eyes. “Take care of yourself, horde scum,” she said lightly and patted her cheek, rising as Adora did, drawing Catra unstably with her. “I have some other things to take care of.”

“Take care of yourself, Sparkles,” Catra wheezed, pulling herself up by Adora’s grip, and punched Glimmer lightly on the shoulder. “And… thanks.”

Glimmer smiled a touch uncertainly just before she disappeared again.

“What happened?” Catra murmured after Adora closed and sealed their room against sound and intrusion. She sat on the edge of the bed, holding her stomach against the rebellion with one hand, her other clutching the edge. “We haven’t really been… open like that, Adora.”

“I know.” Adora, instead of sitting beside her, plopped down at her feet, back to the bed, and tipped her head back into Catra’s lap, looking up into her eyes, those sky-blues shining.

It was remarkable how much a simple haircut, even as drastic as it was, opened up Adora’s face to her, made it seem like nothing could hide there. Even the longer fringe of bangs reaching almost to her brow, swept sideways, made her seem more open.

“Gia figured it out from a smile.” Adora smiled at her, that same wavering, but undeniably happy smile from the salon. “Just that. I’m sure others suspect.”

“Ugh.” Catra rubbed at her eyes and slumped forward, her arms dangling almost to Adora’s thighs. “I wanted to… you know. Get to know people again… before I just became ‘Adora’s girlfriend.’”

Adora craned her neck and kissed her lightly on the chin. “You won’t ever be just that.”

“Yeah. I get that. Not to you.” She’d rather go be a recluse, live alone on some asteroid somewhere, farming with Adora than return to the way she’d hurt her over and over again. If that meant keeping her love a secret from others… “I’m fine with keeping our relationship behind closed doors.”

“Why?”

“You know why.”

Adora prodded her under the chin, brow arched.

“Fine. Because I don’t want to end up in the same place I was before. Defined by my relationship to you. I love you…” Catra straightened, shivering, and stood up to pace the short way from the bed to the wall and thumped her head there. “I don’t want that love to be…” Her tail twitched as she veered away from that thought. “Not again.”

Adora sighed behind her and crawled over to slump against the wall beside her and rested her head against Catra’s hip. “I get it. I don’t want you to feel like that, either.”

“But yeah.” Catra sighed and ran her hand through Adora’s shorter hair, chuckling at the shiver she evoked from a simple brush up the back of her neck. “I want to be more open, too, but I’ve seen where that goes, and I’m… scared.”

“You don’t have to be. This isn’t the Horde, Catra.”

“I know, I know.” It  _ wasn’t _ the Horde. As much as Glimmer had prodded them about coming out, she’d been supportive, and seemed to be genuinely happy for them. If increasingly annoyed that they ignored her prodding. “Part of me is just happy to keep things this way, y’know.”

“Oh?”

“Because it annoys Glimmer.”

Adora barked a laugh and prodded her in the side. “Okay, yeah. That’s a good reason. She’s been getting really pushy. And… that’s what happened today.” The laughter faded and Adora pulled her down gently, not forcing her, but asking her.

“I know.” Catra didn’t drop, but pulled Adora up into an embrace, kissing her lightly. “You realize that if we go public, we’ll need to find another way to annoy her.”

“Mmm. We can’t just pull pranks all the time,” Adora said by way of agreement. “That got  _ way _ too close to her  _ actually  _ cutting my hair.” 

“Ugh. Yeah. She’s onto us there, I think.” Catra spun around and pressed Adora to the wall, running her fingers through her lover’s shorter hair, enjoying the shiver it brought, and the flush that followed. “We could pull a Double-Seahawk.”

“Oh-ho-kay, no. That is a terrible idea. I want to keep her on her toes, not actually space us.” Adora shuddered as Catra ran her fingers  _ up _ the back of her neck. “Unless you want to scoop me up in a bucket, stop that. I’m gonna melt.”

“Mmm. Maybe tonight, then.” A wink and a kiss, and she stopped, crossing her arms against Adora’s chest, just above her breasts. “Got any ideas?”

“Well… let’s get past telling people first. Then we can plan.”

“Good idea.” Another kiss, and Catra leaned back, arms crossed over her own chest. “So, we’ve got a day ahead of us. What next?”

“Could use some exercise.” Adora said, rolling her neck. “Get used to the difference.”

While it  _ was _ tempting to suggest the bed, Catra still felt those memories lurking just under the surface. She didn’t want to deal with those in the middle of losing herself.

“Spar?” She jabbed an elbow at Adora’s head, was blocked, and twisted away from a sucker-punch.

“Yeah.” Adora tossed her head back, blinked, and felt for her ponytail, then laughed and smacked her head against the wall lightly. “Let’s spar a bit. Need a distraction.”

* * *

In the months since winning against Prime, since the first visit up to his once-powerful citadel ship, Glimmer had visited this room many times, soaking in the memories of a month of near solitary confinement, of worry and stress between Prime’s increasingly threatening visits.

There were bits and pieces of memories here and there; the scratches on the floor outside where Catra had sat, her claws digging into metal when Glimmer needled her into leaving when the woman’s insufferable arrogance nettled her. The deeper furrows where Catra had endured the needling just to hear a familiar voice. A voice that didn’t dismiss her out of hand as ‘little sister.’

It was the one place where Catra had had any kind of power. She could stay or she could leave at her whim, aside from the clones occasionally coming by to frighten her and remind her that she was insignificant.

Those were the only times Glimmer hadn’t felt like a speck caught in the eye of a great beast who would blink her away in an instant, as soon as the speck became the slightest bit of an irritant.

It was here where she’d seen past the facade of bravado and anger to the scared and lonely kitten who lashed out  _ because _ she was scared and lonely, because she’d never learned how to deal with being hurt except to run away or fight.

Glimmer sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the scratches that Prime had never repaired, and let the memories stir and come to life in her mind’s eye, her hands weaving a spell that brought the memories to life as flickering shapes, ghostly, mute, incorporeal. 

Catra rose first from the mists of the past, coalescing in shades of red and gray, distraught, red in her eyes, a twitch to her tail. She stood with her palm against the door, watching Glimmer silently, her face a battleground of fear and pain.

All she’d needed to do was say Adora’s name and it would set her off, either to flee or to rant.

“You miss Adora,” Glimmer murmured gently in the now and, in the past, said it with a harsh, borderline venomous tone, watching the name and the accusation ripple over her inconstant companion, her tail lashing, her ears flat.

It was the first time Catra hadn't run away. Hadn’t ranted at her.

After a moment, Catra’s head had thumped to the solid light wall, and she nodded.

That had been after only a week and a half. When Prime’s attention on his two prisoners, one apparently free, the other caged, waned and focused on other tasks.

Catra had begun to see that she was just as caged as Glimmer, for all that the space available for her to roam in couldn’t be crossed in two paces. She had no  _ power _ , and no leverage on Prime. She was worthless to the immortal dictator except as an amusing diversion.

The next time Catra had come to her, she’d been broken, and only sat with her back to the light wall, her ears flat against her skull, her tail twitching sometimes madly and sometimes minutely, until Glimmer had come to sit with her back against the wall as well.

To her surprise, warmth came through the wall, and even that little bit of companionship had nearly broken Glimmer as well. That one little kindness from Catra, unintentional though it might have been, had been the first string in a bond between them created from mutual suffering and ache.

“I miss her too,” Glimmer said in the past and the present, watching herself from the outside, a scared little girl admitting her fears.

They’d sat like that, silent, until a clone wandered by and sent Catra skittering away before it saw her.

She was convinced, now, that it had been a game to Prime, and a part of breaking them both down. Let them have a little time to bond. Use them to connect to each other, draw them out…

“You loved her even then, didn’t you?” Glimmer asked the ghostly memory playing out in front of her. “You always loved her.” Adora had said it, but she wasn’t sure if Catra had felt the same, despite what they’d said planetside. Here… she could see it. “Didn’t you?”

Neither ghostly figure gave her an answer; not that she’d expected one. The spell was at the limit of her ability as a light weaver, the farthest she’d gotten with Aunt Casta’s and her father’s continued training. The images wouldn’t speak to her, only play out what she remembered.

“Why are you so afraid of being open?” she asked them next, her fingers tightening on the edge of the bed. “Nobody’s going to hate you for loving each other.”

The ghost image of her fuzzed into Adora, a memory from one of the dozens of times she’d seen her friend on the edge of collapse, exhausted beyond reason and refusing to stop fighting, and it looked up at her, grinning that maddening ‘It’s okay, Glimmer’ smile when everything was plainly not okay.

Then she would get up and charge off to the next thing. Running away from the pain.

Neither of them had learned how to face their feelings, the things that hurt, deep down, whenever they saw each other. Catra was the fight, and Adora the flight—not that she’d have been able to tell without retrospect. 

They’d kept up the same pattern, Catra fighting the ache in her heart, and Adora running from it, even if it meant fighting, too. Right up until neither could run or fight it anymore. 

Now, they hid with each other, pretending to the rest of the world that they were long-lost friends. That stared longingly at each other when they thought no-one else was looking. That shared a room ‘just like the old days.’

“You need to stop that,” Glimmer told their images. “Really.”

She sat contemplating how to get them to stop hiding and come out until the intercom beeped on the wall outside the cell, and Bow’s voice came over it.

“We’re waiting for you, Glimmer.”

Glimmer dismissed the spell with a wave of her hand. “How’d you find me?” she asked as she pushed herself up and brushed her hair back from her face, resettled her cape and started out the door.

“Not hard. You’re the only lifesign in that part of the ship.” Bow’s chuckle sounded forced, and in the background she heard Entrapta going on about something technical, only every third word coming through the pickup, and those barely recognizable as words. “Coming?”

“Yeah, yeah, just give me a moment.” Glimmer turned off the intercom with a touch and turned to look in from the outside, where Catra had been, looking in at a lonely, defiant Glimmer.

She crouched down beside the empty space where she’d seen her memories play out, her fingers tracing over the scars Catra had left on the deck plating and she could feel the pain bleeding out of the past into her fingers. She could still see it in Catra in unguarded moments. Shakes. Trembles.

Memories of the past coming back to haunt her.

She left them there and teleported to her office first to pick up her notepad, then to the entrance to Hordak’s suite of quarters, flanked by four guards—two in the mismatched Rebellion armor that had been cobbled together over the decades long war, and two in the repainted Horde plated armor, the new symbol that of Brightmoon.

“What were you doing down there?” Bow asked as soon as she appeared.

“Thinking,” Glimmer said shortly, tapping her notepad against her hip. “Ready?”

Bow eyed her for a long moment, frowning, then nodded. “Sure. Ready.” He nodded to the guards. “Open up.”

Entrapta rushed in first, then hesitated on the edge of a yellow and black taped line while Bow and Glimmer followed her in more sedately.

This would be the first time she’d more than participated in a video-call to Hordak for a question about the ship’s performance past lightspeed—slow, compared to what Prime’s ship had been able to accomplish, but more efficient—and the inclusion of so much Horde technology in such close proximity, not merely Prime tech, but some of the remnants of his experiments into portals and other things, all of it decommissioned according to both Bow and Entrapta, but useful for scrap at the very least for doing whatever repairs needed to be done.

It, like Entrapta’s tech, like Bow’s, was all based on electricity.

“Is it that time already?” Hordak’s voice called from beyond the black and yellow tape.

“It is that time,” Glimmer said, taking charge and stepping past the black and yellow tape with all the regal grace she could muster, reminding herself that he was a prisoner, and she his jailor, and whatever crimes he had committed against the people of Etheria, she had a duty to use his knowledge, use  _ him _ to ensure that her people stayed safe. “We’ve moved five light-years since launch.”

“Far slower than I would have expected in a day,” Hordak mused, turning around in the chair and de-linking from the support harness that kept his clone body going. “It’s a performance level closer to that of the First Ones vessel, is it not?”

“It is.” Glimmer shook her head slowly. “However, our fuel crystals are being used up at a much slower rate.”

Hordak smiled grimly and pulled himself up, touching a control on his way to meet them. “The universe does not like it when we break its laws, and extracts a heavy toll when we try to break them more.”

A table and chairs descended from overhead on robotic arms, a video monitor joining the fray as soon as the four pieces of furniture had settled into place. Entrapta, as usual, sat on her hair. For the sake of her friend, Glimmer pushed down her  _ extreme _ dislike of Hordak and shoved it into a small room in the back of her mind.

“Today’s meeting is about the findings of the latest telescopic readings from our forward sensor array,” Glimmer said to the viewscreen, knowing it would be recording already. “And some additional questions regarding the nature of Despondos and portals.”

“Ahh.” Hordak tapped a finger on the table, then stopped, looking at Entrapta, and settled back down in a chair. “I fail to see what Despondos has to do with our present situation.”

Glimmer took a deep breath and started to explain the thoughts Catra had brought up and went over the readings in greater detail, with Entrapta and Bow pitching in to expand on questions Hordak had regarding the findings. Down here, he had access to nothing but a limited database and limited communications suite, as well as some carefully vetted pieces of technology.

Nobody was particularly happy about that, but as one of only two clones known to have broken free of the conditioning, he was invaluable as a resource, and had made demands prior to being included in the mission.

“Ah. That makes a little more sense. You want to know if there are any enclaves of First Ones still out there. Perhaps one that Adora came from.” Hordak leaned back in his chair, looking very much like the same conquering villain she’d heard Catra and Adora describe. Brooding, unhappy. “It’s possible, but it took nearly the entire output of the planet’s dormant heart for a hundred years to reach where she was, unintended though that was, and I still have no idea where in real space the portal came out.”

“There’s also the question of how  _ you _ got into Despondos, Hordak,” Entrapta said, tapping away at the compupad in front of her. “By all rights, getting into the precise time-space coordinates to crash land on Etheria should have been impossible unless a similar event happened a hundred years ago.”

Glimmer tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair, realized she was copying Hordak unconsciously, and leaned forward. “We know Light Hope was trying to pull in a First One for years. Possibly centuries. Who knows what else got brought to Etheria in her attempts to reach out?”

Hordak was staring at her, his green eyes wide, brows rising almost to his white crop of hair. “What did you say?”

“Light Hope. The First Ones planetary operating system. It kept trying to bring a First One to Etheria. We don’t know how many attempts it made,” Bow said, and tapped at his pad. After a moment, the starfield was replaced by the ‘debriefing’ report, really an exhausted, heartache ridden rant by Adora about what had happened that Bow had later transcribed to text for Entrapta.

“Damnit!” Hordak grunted, slamming his fist against the table. “You should have shared this earlier! This changes everything.”

“How?” Glimmer demanded, rising and planting her hands on the table. “How does this change everything, Hordak?”

“Entrapta, you have my old notes, yes?” Hordak asked, his voice more even, modulated.

“Of course,” Entrapta said immediately, already tapping away. “Fascinating reading as always.”

After a moment, Hordak rose, looking tired, and went to the screen, taking the compupad from Entrapta and starting to navigate through the readings and results until he came to a graph.

“This. This is what I’m talking about.” He jabbed a finger at it and passed the pad back to Entrapta. “Some labels, please, your tech is confusing to me.”

“What axes?” 

Glimmer tuned them out for a moment to share a look with Bow, unable to escape the feeling that they had all missed something incredibly obvious in all the fighting and afterwards in the rebuilding. He shrugged and tipped his head toward the screen.

When she returned her attention to Hordak and the screen, it was labeled and included two data points. Magic on the vertical axis, and time on the horizontal, with regular smooth curves up to a peak every one hundred years and sudden dips back to almost the bottom of the graph.

“Here,” Hordak said and pointed at the second to last data point, “is where I arrived.” He jabbed at the last one, the last peak before a sudden surge in the graph. “Here is where Adora arrived. I thought, when I pulled the data from an expedition to Beast Island early in my internment on Etheria, that it was merely a natural planetary phenomenon. A natural ebb and flow of the magic.”

Glimmer stared at the graph, reading the axes in Etherian years before the Horde arrived, fingers twitching as she counted the peaks and smooth upward curves. It was like a heartbeat, decades between each beat. “This is… this is the Heart’s beating…”

“It is, and it is not,” Hordak said in a maddeningly calm voice. “I continued monitoring, Queen Glimmer, with regular flights to Beast Island under the guise of dropping off traitors.”

Glimmer glanced at Entrapta, who seemed unphased by having been trapped on Beast Island at all. More than likely it’d been heaven for her; an island of all first ones technology, corrupted and diseased as it might have been…

“I timed my last offensive for when the magic had drained almost to nothing, thinking it would weaken your forces. I was wrong then, and I was wrong in my interpretation of what this was.” He tapped each additional peak, going back almost seventeen hundred years. “Every century, the First Ones ruins all across Etheria, even on Beast Island, would surge with magical energy and light up the sky for only a few minutes.”

Glimmer stared at the times on the chart, trying to ignore what the words meant, what his ‘last offensive’ had cost in terms of people. It wasn’t easy even being in the same room as he was, but she made herself pay attention to the chart and see it as only numbers, not a ticking down of lives and territory.

She tried. She really did. She needed to focus on this, because it… had cost so many lives. Over a mistaken assumption.

In the middle of Entrapta trying to explain what the peaks actually were, Glimmer stood up and stumbled away from the table. “Meeting adjourned,” she said belatedly, realizing that she intended to leave and not come back to it today. “I’ll…”

Before she could finish the thought, she teleported.

Back to the containment cell. Back to staring at claw marks on the floor.

But even those couldn’t take her mind off the ten years of the offensive. The steady ramping up of incursions and invasions. The kingdoms lost and threatened before the first Princess Alliance had broken apart under the strain. Before her father had ‘perished’ in the battle that had finally brought the offensive to a halt.

That hadn’t been Catra. She’d barely been a teenager at the time.

She turned away from the claw marks and stared out at the void, unfeeling and uncaring, empty and harsh.

It had been because Hordak had ordered it. Because he thought the waning magic meant the Princesses were weaker. That magic itself was weaker. He’d been wrong.

And, because he had, she’d lost her father for more than a decade.

“I hate you,” she whispered. “I can never forgive what you did, Hordak.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... editing this one took less time. But I now only have a chapter and a half as buffer... the next chapter feels almost ready to post, too, but... gah! Juggling work and writing, and rewriting (other story was old and I wasn't so good at ze wordsing when I started it).
> 
> I just have this chapter, the next, and _maybe_ a quarter/half of the next chapter after that done.


	8. Past Friends

The ‘Troop Deck’ was really a retrofitted hangar bay, and not where the troops were actually housed. It was simply the main place where they congregated day in and day out, and had been for the past few weeks. 

It was one of dozens scattered throughout the massive ship, most of them now empty or acting as storage for everything that had been hauled up to the craft in jumbled lots. This one, because of the massive tree trunk growing on the other side of the bay doors, had been outfitted with a lot of salvaged gym equipment from the Fright Zone and partitioned off with hedgerows into former Horde, Rebellion, and joint exercise areas.

It’d been the second stop on their tour of the ship the first day, and because it was one of the larger bays, it was directly connected to the main trunk lifts.

Adora tapped her expanding staff lightly against her hip, careful not to activate it, and held onto Catra’s hand lightly. Sometime in the short span of walking from their room after deciding they needed to come out as a couple, they’d decided they shouldn’t hide even the little signs of affection.

Somehow, they’d reached the agreement without actually agreeing to it in so many words. She couldn’t put a finger on what was said… but she could pinpoint the moment. Just a look at Catra, a sidelong glance back, and a faint damn-it-to-Despondos grin.

The main area the lift opened onto was the joint exercise area, the largest of the three partitions, an open field of grass with sparse spots where the bare metal of the deck plating glowed white under the mixed artificial and First Ones magical sunlight lamps.

The joint area was almost empty and only Perfuma and Scorpia sitting near the center, both of them in meditational repose and facing each other.

Catra stilled as they stepped off and glanced between the hedgerow arches leading to former horde and rebellion territories. “So… where do we work out? Here? Or…”

At the first sound of her voice, Scorpia’s eyes opened. “Hey! Hey, Catra! Adora!”

Adora spared a brief look at Catra, squeezed her hand, and got a smile and squeeze in return. “Hey, Scorpia, Perfuma. Anyone training today?”

“Everyone!” Scorpia said, rising and offering a claw to Perfuma. “Haha, it was wild a few hours ago.” She stopped and stared as they came closer, eyes and a claw darting and pointing from Adora’s haircut to their clasped hands. “Hey! Hair besties!”

“You like it?” Adora asked, shaking her head and missing already the usual flip of her ponytail. “It’s… different. Gonna have to get used to it.”

“It is, but it’s still you,” Perfuma said, smiling and patting Scorpia on the claw lightly. “I sense there’s more than your hair that has changed, Adora.”

Catra raised a brow and smirked, raising her hand clasped with Adora’s. “You could say that.”

Perfuma laughed lightly and moved to embrace Adora then, more reluctantly—on both participants’ parts—Catra. “I’m glad you decided to stop hiding your feelings. Both of you.”

“Wait just a darn second,” Scorpia said, pointing a claw between the two of them. “You two… have… what?”

“We’re seeing each other,” Adora said. “Romantically,” she added after a moment of confused pondering.

“Whoa.” Scorpia backed up a step and sat down. “Just… give me a sec. That’s… wild.”

“It’s not, really,” Catra said with a sigh and a glance at the Horde archway, indicated with a sign of the Brightmoon wings and moonstone in the same configuration as the Horde symbol’s lightning bolts. “We’ve… um. For a while. It just took us a while to figure it out.”

“No kidding, huh?” Scorpia said, still looking between them. “‘Fumes, you knew?”

“I did. It was obvious to me months ago,” Perfuma said, smiling at the two of them, hands clasped loosely in front of her. “Why they kept it secret, even to themselves, I didn’t know, but it’s not my place to say when love should bloom, even if it was growing underneath.”

Catra flushed, her shoulders tensing, then relaxed, her tail brushing the back of Adora’s leg. “Thanks for keeping quiet, princess.”

“Of course.” Perfuma settled her hand in Scorpia’s hair and ruffled the wispy white tangle into a froth. “Were you intending to work out?”

“Yep.” Adora held out her staff and extended it to full length. It wasn’t as good as the one she’d lost in the crystal tunnels, but it did its job well enough. She couldn’t be She-Ra all the time, after all. Not and stay at her own physical peak. “Catra and I were thinking about doing some sparring.”

“That’s fine, but please do so quietly. Scorpia and I are working on her meditational awareness. To help her with her perception.” Perfuma sat back down in the place she had been before and resumed the position she’d been in before. “You’re welcome to join us, if you wish.”

Adora glanced at Catra, shrugged and nodded to the Horde side. “Reconnoiter?”

Catra stared at the archway for long seconds, her tail twitching left and right, her ears flattening and rising before she shook her head lightly and let go of Adora’s hand. “Not me. Not yet. Not after… that.” She flashed a smile and ran her hand up the back of Adora’s neck, drawing out a shiver and an urge to kiss he. “You go ahead and do recon. I’ll sit quietly with these two for now.”

“You? Sit quietly?” Adora asked teasingly, louder than the next, whispered, “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Catra’s smile wavered, then firmed, her tail flicking. “I’ll be fine.” She hesitated, then cupped Adora’s cheeks in her hands and pulled her in for a kiss to the sound of Scorpia’s sudden, loud gasp. “Love you.”

“Love you, too,” Adora whispered back. “Take care of yourself, Catra.”

“Idiot,” she murmured, grinning, “I’m not going anywhere, and neither are you.”

One more kiss, briefer, and a playful shove sent Adora jogging toward the former Horde archway.

The Horde side, or former horde, or whatever they called themselves aboard ship, was much more crowded. Grunts and thuds of training soldiers, either in squad formations or singly, sounded out over the grassy deck area, the noise oddly quiet for the amount of it, all apparently dampened by some technological feature of the bay or by the simple nature of the grass and hedges that broke up the space.

Almost immediately on entering, the training slowed to a stop as eyes turned to her and partners held up hands for a stop, a quick chain reaction spreading through the ranks as more and more soldiers, all hypersensitive to change in their environs, turned to see what had caused this particular disruption.

Weights clanged down and lifters and spotters both looked up and even runners on the bare metal track slowed to a stop to see what was going on.

“Hey,” Adora called out, raising her hand and waving awkwardly, then lowered it and grinned. “Thought I would, um, come down and spar a bit. Don’t want to get rusty, y’know.”

It took a few seconds for anyone to decide what to do, but it was, of course, Lonnie who made her way through the staring, murmuring crowd of soldiers to stand with hands planted on hips to face her. Sweat stained her jumper and darkened the headband keeping it out of her eyes. Already hard at work this early in the morning.

“Adora,” Lonnie said in a flat voice, leaning to the side to look behind her. “Where’s Catra?”

“Meditating,” Adora said shortly, spine stiffening. “I wanted to do something more physical.”

“Catra. Meditating.” Lonnie snorted and shook her head. “That’s just not right.”

“She’s changed,” Adora said, loosening her posture and extending her staff. It wasn’t quite the same as her previous one, for one being slower to extend to full length and needing a shake to get it to lock into place, but it suited her. She couldn’t always rely on She-Ra to win her battles. “And so have I. I’m not the naive cadet.”

“Why are you here?” Lonnie flicked one of her force-batons at the gathered crowd. “You abandoned all of us, Adora.” 

“I defected from the side of evil,” Adora shot back.

“Yeah?” Lonnie looked back at her fellow former soldiers, seeing a lot of unease there, and faced her again. “And did you come back and tell us we should follow you? Did you try to explain it to us? Did you even  _ try _ to break through the brainwashing?”

_ All things I should have done. _ Adora kept her stance firm, her voice steady. “I can’t change what I did, Lonnie. All of you. It was war. Hectic. Chaotic. Fast-moving. All of you would have, and did, attack me whenever I came to the Fright Zone.”

“Heh.” Lonnie shook her head slowly.

“All I want right now is to work out a bit.” Adora swept the end of her staff across the half-circle of people watching and listening. “I didn’t come here to argue the past. I wanted to meet up with people I once knew as friends.”

“Friends.” Lonnie chuckled. “We weren’t friends, Adora. We never were. We were cadets.”

“I thought we were,” Adora said, her heart feeling heavy in her chest. “I’m sorry, Lonnie.”

“I can see that,” Lonnie said with a sniff as she twirled her force-batons, the usual crackle of energy missing, the power indicators off. “Fine. One-on-one?”

“Sure. Tap out or—”

Lonnie leapt forward, dancing on the balls of her feet, and swung a quick one-two overhead and backhanded smash.

The first, Adora sidestepped, the second she deflected down with a quick slap of the staff and backed up half a step, her blood singing as the call of battle roared to life.

“Not bad,” Lonnie grunted and spun into a twirling backhand, forehand strike barely discernible as separate strikes.

Adora twirled the staff and deflected both in different directions, opening Lonnie for a quick strike to her abdomen that her opponent brushed aside with an elbow drop and followed up with a jab at her shoulder.

“Not bad yourself,” Adora said, grinning and launching her own offensive, both hands on the staff, spinning and striking rapid beats that Lonnie battered away rather than diverted, her own brutal style of combat not having changed much from their training days as a cadet. It was more refined, focused, and direct now than it used to be, the edges filed off from constant training, but still a brute strength tactic.

Adora had been like that, once, brute strength and barging in. But months of training with Catra during the Prime Crisis and after had taught Adora the benefits of a little more finesse, and she used it then against Lonnie, trying to show she’d changed through action.

Within a few minutes, Adora was sweating freely, and the hair that should have gotten in her eyes from moving so much… wasn’t. It felt odd not to have her ponytail swinging with every dodge and strike, but the lack of hair-induced blindness was a welcome counterpoint.

“Should have—” She deflected a double forward strike up and spun to slap a blow at Lonnie’s back, only to have her drop and roll away. “—cut my hair—” Barely, she avoided a kick at her legs, leaping and planting her staff in the grass to push herself back in front of her foe. “—sooner.”

“You look like Catra,” Lonnie grunted from her nearly prone position. She flexed and pushed off with her hands and feet, aiming an overhead kick that turned into a roll and thrust that Adora deflected away.

“Needed a change,” Adora grunted, sidestepping Lonnie’s followup and flashing her weapon through a spin to deflect a high and low thrust simultaneously, riposting with a light tap overhead tap against Lonnie’s shoulder that connected. “Point.”

Lonnie slumped, kicking out her feet and flopping onto her back, breathing hard. “Fine. Point.”

“That wasn’t a fair fight,” Adora huffed, dropping down cross-legged a few feet away. “You were already working out before I got here.”

“True.”

Adora leaned forward against her staff, watching the crowd dispersing after the bout ended, leaving two familiar faces behind. Kyle and Rogelio, one sweat-stained and the other with the crests on the back of his head darker red as he dispersed the heat as his people did.

“Adora,” Kyle said politely, nodding and touching Rogelio lightly on the thigh, moving to sit next to Lonnie, his hand resting on hers. “I-it’s been a while.”

“Yeah.” Adora stared between them, her mind still blank about what she wanted to say, or even what she  _ could _ say. As much as she’d pressed on Catra that this wasn’t the Fright Zone, some of the same mentalities would still hold out here. She might go back to living in Adora’s shadow among people who’d once been her comrades. “How have you been?”

“Fine.” Kyle looked up, his cheeks flushing as Rogelio settled himself in the grass beside him. “We got… what’s… the word? In Brightmoon?”

“I dunno. What did you do?” Adora said, glancing between the three of them, noting Kyle’s hand resting on Lonnie’s and the way his touch seemed to loosen her grip on the baton. “Did you… three get in a relationship?”

Lonnie’s fingers tightened again. “None of her business, Kyle.”

“You’ve told her as much, you know,” he said, grinning, gaining a little confidence. “Adora’s not an idiot.”

“Yes I am,” Adora said, grinning and tapping her head against the staff. “Just ask Catra.”

“You know,” Lonnie said with a huff and a deep breath, relaxing her grip on the batons. “You two are awful close. Scuttlebut says you’re sharing a room?”

“I mean…“ Adora coughed and laughed. “We  _ used _ to share a bed. Sharing a room… we did that in the rebellion against Prime.” She poked the end of her staff lightly against Lonnie’s hip. “So… you three, huh? And I think what you’re looking for is ‘married.’ You got married. Congratulations.”

“That,” Kyle said, snapping his fingers. “We had a married ceremony and everything in Bright Moon.”

“Marriage ceremony,” Adora corrected with a sigh. “Really… goes to show how little they actually taught us in the Fright Zone, doesn’t it?”

“Fighting. Tactics.” Kyle said, shrugging. “Not that I was ever good at either. I mostly relied on you four to keep me alive.”

“Four?” Lonnie grunted. “It was two, Kyle. The other two didn’t care or left. And also didn’t care.”

“I cared! I was careful to make sure you didn’t get… you know. Killed. Or anything.” Adora clenched the staff more tightly. “Not that you made it easy on us.”

“Duh. It was  _ war, _ you idiot. The Fright Zone was our home. Of  _ course _ we fought. If we didn’t fight, we didn’t have a home.”

Rogelio said something in his guttural language, both Lonnie and Kyle listening, and pointed at Adora.

“What’d he say?”

“It wasn’t ever your home,” Kyle said, squinting at the lizardman. “What? Of course it was her home, you big goof.”

Rogelio rolled his eyes and gestured at Adora while looking at his two partners, growling something even longer and more complex in his language.

Lonnie snorted before he’d even finished, opened her mouth to rebut, but stopped and glowered at him. “Fine. That’s not a bad point.” She pushed herself up on her elbows and flicked one of the batons at Adora. “He said you were always dreaming of bigger things, even if those bigger things took you away from the Fright Zone. It’s why you kept going up to the cooling towers.”

“Huh. Is that what those were?” Adora had always thought they were lookout towers. They had railings, after all.

“Because from up there, you could see past the Fright Zone’s borders.”

“Uh, no. I followed Catra up there, because it was the farthest she could get from Shadow Weaver.” Adora shrugged and tapped her staff against her shoulder. “Speaking of—”

“Rather you didn’t,” Lonnie growled.

“She wants to talk to everyone,” Adora said, fixing Lonnie with a glare. “You three especially. We both grew up with you. I mean, I abandoned you, too. I fought against you. I mean, I threw Rogelio halfway through a wall at least once.”

Rogelio grunted and held up four fingers, then growled at his mates.

“He’s tough, he says,” Kyle translated. “And through a wall once. I remember it. Rogelio doesn’t.”

“Here’s the thing,” Lonnie said, thumping the end of her baton on the ground, “you were an enemy combatant. We  _ expected _ that from you. We didn’t expect the  _ relative _ gentleness you treated us with, and we respected you for it.”

“Well… I knew you guys. I… also knew what Hordak did to you all.” Adora flicked a finger at them. “And what Shadow Weaver did when she thought you were slowing me down.”

“Heh. Yeah, well, we’re just lucky Catra kept getting into trouble instead of—”

“Stop.”

“What? You know—”

Adora pushed herself up and jabbed a finger at Lonnie. “Stop right there. Shadow Weaver made  _ sure _ she got in trouble, Lonnie. She made up rules after Catra ‘broke’ them just so she could punish her for it. Most of the time she didn’t even bother with that much of a farce.” She shook her head slowly and turned back to the archway leading from the Horde area. “If you didn’t see that… I can’t make you believe it.”

She walked away, tears in her eyes that she refused to let them see.

* * *

Footsteps on the grass almost broke Catra out of the guided meditation, but Perfuma’s words rolled through her ears above the sound again.

“You are on a tall hill, nothing but green around you.”

She was there again, standing on a hill overlooking the overgrown Fright Zone, the sickly green of industry and the glow of Prime gone and subsumed by forest green, grass green, sea green.

“Flowers bloom as you walk down the hill.”

The footsteps got closer and the vision of green faded again as Catra’s eyes snapped open in the instant before Adora sat heavily behind her, the stumpy cylinder of her staff rolling away.

“Adora?” Catra asked, half-turning in the moment before strong arms caught her about the waist and pulled her close. “Hey, Adora,” she whispered, helping herself into a warm lap and twining her fingers with Adora’s, stopping her from getting a complete hold of her, but still holding her. “What happened?”

“Bad memories,” Adora murmured into the back of Catra’s neck. “I forgot how…  _ agh! _ ”

“Yeah… Lonnie can be very  _ agh _ ,” Catra said with a purr transforming into a laugh when Adora bit her neck. 

“Wow, you two are, like, really close aren’t you?” Scorpia asked from a few paces away, drawing a hmph from Perfuma.

They weren’t alone. For a moment, she’d forgotten that and let herself go. This was just for Adora. The play and playfulness was supposed to be theirs alone.

_ Is that what being open means? _ The thought circled around a few times before she quashed it with a snort and leaned back against Adora. It felt strange to  _ be _ so openly affectionate. Teasing was… another matter entirely.  _ Isn’t it? _

Teasing was their power game, their give and take throughout the day. It was normal. It’d  _ been _ their normal since before Catra could remember consciously.

“You’re not meditating,” Perfuma said in a voice that was just barely on the border between calm and annoyance. “You’re not even trying, Scorpia.”

Catra opened one eye to peer at the larger woman, fidgeting with her pincers as she watched the two of them. It was hard to remember, sometimes, that Scorpia had had a crush on her for reasons that Catra couldn’t quite figure out. She was a more competent Force Captain in the field, by the book, than Catra had been.

“It’s, um… do you think we could sit like that, Perfuma?” Scorpia asked, her cheeks flushing red as she did. “It might help me concentrate.”

Perfuma let out a heavy sigh and released her meditational pose. “Please don’t distract my class. If you’re going to participate in meditation, do so, but if you’re going to cuddle, at least find me a blindfold for Scorpia.”

“Sorry, Perfuma” Adora murmured, relaxing her hold on Catra’s waist and leaning into her. “Just needed a moment.”

Perfuma resumed her slow, steady guiding of at least Scorpia into a place of peace and wonder. The mythical ‘happy place’ that she was always going on about when things got serious, both during the fight with Prime and after, when the remnants of the Horde tried to break Hordak out of prison and reinstate the way things had been.

Catra had tried to find that happy place more than once in guided meditation sessions with Perfuma, but had never seemed to get quite there. She could picture the places Perfuma described, but she could never quite put herself there like she was supposed to have done.

In Adora’s lap, warmth surrounding her, she got closer than she had before, but it was still a long way’s off from what Perfuma said she should feel.

More footsteps, heavy to light, dismissed the image Perfuma was building again.

“A moment I won’t get, of course,” Adora muttered, spotting them at last out of the corner of her eye. “You ready for this, kitten?”

“I don’t feel like this is a ‘kitten’ moment,” Catra grumbled. “Maybe ‘wildcat’, or just ‘cat.’”

“Fine, wildcat,” Adora said, her smile against the back of Catra’s neck warming away some of the worries blooming. Going public with their relationship… to the Horde first…

_ ‘This isn’t the Horde, Catra _ , _ ’ _ Adora had told her, and she was right, but the Horde mentality was hard to get rid of. It was a part of training, after all. 

“Yeah, I’m ready.” Whether she was or not, it was a little late to decide otherwise.

“Something missing knew I,” Rogelio grumbled in his guttural tongue. “Careful with words be more, Lonnie.”

Catra spent a moment wishing she’d paid more attention to the grammar lessons for lizardfolk before she turned to face the trio watching them, brow raised and tail twitching, daring them to say something.

“Huh.” Kyle pointed between them with one finger, his other hand trying desperately to rub his hair off his head. “So. You, uh…”

“Well, some things suddenly make a whole lot more sense,” Lonnie muttered, hips cocked and arms folded under her breasts. “How long?”

“Does it matter?” Adora asked, releasing her hold and leaning back to prop herself on her hands. A ruse of relaxation. Muscles tensed under Catra’s legs and against her back, Adora ready to spring into action in a backwards roll. Away from Lonnie. 

Adora expected a fight.

_ What happened? _ Catra stayed tense, perching with her heels on the grass, her balance hovering over rolling forward.

“Of course it matters!”

“Why?” Adora asked in her doggedly determined way, some of the tension releasing.

Lonnie huffed and gestured at the two of them. “Why?  _ Why?” _

“Just answer her, Lonnie,” Catra said, flicking an ear and grinning as she turned to sit on Adora’s right thigh, one knee against her stomach, the other leg stretched out straight. Still ready to push off. “She won’t answer until you do. She’s stubborn like that.”

“But why?” Lonnie asked, gesticulating at them. “You two were at each other’s throats for a  _ year _ ! What does six months do?”

Adora cocked her head to the side as Perfuma, growing increasingly irritated by the continued interruption of her meditation session with Scorpia—who was watching curiously, but had apparently learned not to interfere at last—stood up and stalked over to the former horde soldiers.

“Ah, Princess Perfuma,” Lonnie said with a nervous tick in her voice, “I apologize for disturbing you.”

“Sit.”

Lonnie sat, her cheeks reddening in a  _ bizarre _ display of deference. “Yes, your highness.”

“Lonnie,” Perfuma said, clasping her hands in front of her and leaning over, “I didn’t preside over your wedding to have you call me  _ highness _ .”

“You presided over it because you were the only princess willing to give us a chance,” Lonnie growled. “Your highness. Forgive me if you think that doesn’t give me some kind of debt to you.”

“That’s Horde thinking,” Perfuma said gently. “I do not do things because I think I am  _ owed _ for doing them, Lonnie.”

“Owed for life, food, shelter, we to Hordak. With service repaid.” Rogelio said, tapping his chest. “Owed for learning, teaching by all, owed for love, recognized by you.” He pointed definitively at Perfuma. “Repaid never.”

Kyle nodded. “What he said.”

Perfuma faltered at last, her fingers to her chin. “Just… what did he say?”

Lonnie stared at her, then flicked a look at Catra. “Later, highness. I’d rather not discuss it in front of her.”

“Calm, Lonnie. Calm,” Perfuma said, clasping her hands in front of her, entreating not just Lonnie, but Catra and Adora as well.

Catra flicked her tail once, considering the three of them, one sitting with the other two resting hands on shoulder and head.  _ You already did. _ The question wasn’t whether to tell them, it was whether telling them now would make things worse… or better. She resisted chewing her lip to mull it over, her eyes darting between the three of them.

The standoff continued until Lonnie let out a huff and glared daggers at Catra. “It matters because I want to know.”

Adora cocked her head to the side, lips pursed as she considered the answer. “Up to you, Catra. That good enough?”

“Me?” Catra blinked and twisted to stare at Adora, that quirky grin and short hair… the pouf was gone. That took her aback for a moment, then she settled again and chuckled. “Alright, fine. Always, Lonnie. We… I… had some things wrong in my head. And… six months? Lonnie, it was a month.” 

No. The memories slammed into her like a thrown tank, sucking the breath from her lungs with the intensity of the moment. The horrible realization of what her body was about to do without her consent or input.

Not a month. It was five minutes, fighting the woman she loved, watching as  _ her _ claws rent the air,  _ her _ claws dug into Adora’s shoulder.  _ Her  _ love fighting back. The moment of clarity, taken away again.

Another memory crashed in on her with the weight of a mountain.

Not even five minutes. It was a single moment with the world falling apart around them. A choice and a decision, the future uncertain, but her path clear before her.

Never to leave her again even as Adora’s life, and hers with it, ebbed away. Even as the path to flee remained open…

She came back before the kiss. It was always before the kiss. The confession. The memories never let her have that one bit of solace. Trembling and weak, cheeks wet, seeing the moment in fading images, of Adora dying in her arms, she found herself curled up half on the grass and half in Adora’s embrace, strong arms trembling as tears trickled down her ear from Adora’s cheek.

“I’m not leaving you again,” Adora whispered, and somewhere in her mind, she knew Adora had been whispering it the whole time she’d lost. “Never again.”

_ What did I say? _ She lay in that embrace, letting the warmth and strength in Adora’s arms pull her back to reality by slow bits. The lights in the troop bay, both artificial and ‘real’ glared out of the corner of her eye, partially blocked by Adora, partially by the red blazer opened to hide her from the world.

A big wet stain on Adora’s white jumper where she’d buried her face during the worst of the flashbacks. She couldn’t remember doing it. Sometimes she did remember, and other times it was like she blacked out.

“Hey, Adora,” Catra murmured, pulling back and pushing away everything around her. 

“Hey yourself,” Adora murmured, loosening her embrace and letting Catra sit more normally in her lap, one arm bracing her back, hand resting firmly on her hip, the other resting on Catra’s knee.

The warmth lasted until the distant sound of sandbags being thwacked rose over the hollow sound of the troop bay. She darted looks all around her, even behind Adora and, when she didn’t see anyone, she relaxed minutely. “Did they see?”

“They saw,” Adora murmured, kissing her brow again and loosening her hold on Catra’s hip. “But I asked them to leave, and they did.”

“Great.” She sighed and scooted from Adora’s lap to settle in the grass facing her. “What… what did they say?”

“Nothing. They just… left when I asked them to.” Adora tipped her head to the side and reached out to tickle her fingers against Catra’s knee. “One of the blackouts. You didn’t seem aware of anything. You just kept… asking me not to leave you.” A pause, a faint breath, and she added, “I won’t.”

“Thanks. I… we…” Catra shook her head slowly and fell back to stare at the ceiling a good forty feet off the ground. “I don’t know what to tell them. Our friends.”

“I don’t either. You’re… getting better, right? They don’t seem to last as long anymore.” Adora didn’t sound quite so certain, and two episodes in two days was… not good. But there was also where they were and who they were surrounded by. That was the reason.

“Yeah. I think so. Just… this morning. Thought I’d pushed it off.” Catra twirled a finger in the air and let the hand flop back to the ground again. “Just delayed it.”

“We can’t hide in your room until it’s fixed,” Adora said.

“Duh.” Catra hesitated, then added, “I… think…”

“You know… it’s… like a lot of what the rebellion front-line soldiers dealt with after the war ended.” Light fingers trailed over her knee, tickling the stiffer hairs there, trailing up to the first vent in her tights, then back down. “We could ask Perfuma for help.”

“How do you know it’s  _ like _ what they dealt with?”

“Because I read my reports,” Adora said, sounding smug.

“When?”

“Here and there.”

Memories of Adora coming back to bed after using the head, of her shifting restlessly. The dim light they always kept on, a necessity for sleep since true darkness had never existed in their childhoods… she could have used it to read by with the screen turned down. They’d had precious little other time to do anything report-wise.

They’d both made sure that every moment they had awake was filled with  _ something _ . When it wasn’t, when Catra had had a week of downtime following a sprained ankle… the episodes had started after the third day of indolence and too much thinking. Remembering.

Catra let out a sigh and jabbed a finger at her blindly, tail following her pointing to flick across Adora’s arm. “That have anything to do with why your compupad always had a dead battery?”

“Maaaybe.” The teasing playfulness in Adora’s voice lingered for a moment in a smile Catra didn’t need to look to see. Something about her fingers, the way they felt as they moved. Then they stilled, and the mental image of a smile evaporated. “Also… because I was worried when the episodes started, Catra. I was… hoping you weren’t the only one.”

“You… haven’t been having them, have you?” Catra sat up to look her in the eye, needing to know for certain if Adora was hiding it from her.

“No. I mean… not yet, at least. I worry, but I keep going, Catra. I keep…” She held out a hand and let the sword fuzz briefly into view, then dropped her hand and shook her head. “I have to keep going.”

There was no sign of deception in her, not even signs of her trying to act. There was a bone-deep weariness that seemed to settle over her as soon as she let the sword go back to wherever it went when she wasn’t holding it.

“The war’s over, Adora. Can’t you, just for a while, relax? Fully? Take a whole day off? A week? Just do  _ nothing _ .” Catra held up a finger when Adora opened her mouth to object. Because of course she would. “No She-Ra. No reports. No stress. Just you—” She leaned forward to prod Adora’s chest. “—me, and…”

_ Where? _ The forsaken ship had nowhere they could go to hide from the memories, nowhere that Glimmer couldn’t get to them in a single teleport.

Adora raised a brow, waiting, a small smile on her lips as if she could read Catra’s thoughts.

“The  _ beach _ .”

“Tempting, tempting,” Adora mused, pulling at her chin with that stupid idiot grin. “Two things. One, we don’t exactly have a beach around here, and two, you hate water.” 

“I hate getting  _ wet _ . Do you know what it feels like to have all my fur clinging to itself? Everywhere? It’s the worst!” Catra kicked Adora’s knee lightly and laid back. “I can watch you swim, idiot, and then… I dunno. Make out?”

“Just a sec.” Adora reached behind her fumbling, and brought out… nothing and held it to her ear, grinning even more broadly. “Let me call Glimmer and say we need to find a planet  _ with a beach. _ ”

“Hardehar.” Catra giggled and kicked lightly again, this time letting her foot get captured, her sole massaged slowly by strong thumbs. It felt  _ great _ . “You know I was talking about sex, right?” 

“Of course. Duh. But sex and the beach?” Adora reached out and tapped her chin, grinning, cheeks flushed. “Catra, I love your tongue, but adding  _ actual _ sand would make your tongue  _ actually _ sandpaper. It would make mine like that, too. And taste awful. And sand fleas. Don’t forget the sand fleas.”

“Spoilsport. Stupid reality.” Catra huffed, crossing her arms over her chest and letting herself fall back again. “Ruining stupid sexy ideas.”

“And as much as I would like to continue discussing all the ways sex on the beach would  _ not _ be fun,” Adora murmured, reaching out and catching her wrists with both hands to pull her back up right, “I… think we should go talk to Perfuma. If you’re feeling better.”

“Can… we wait? It’s getting better, Adora.”

She hesitated, but nodded and pulled her in for a kiss. “It can wait.”

So could being more open. Catra closed her eyes and pulled away from the kiss, resting her head on Adora’s shoulder. Today’s double-disaster proved that they weren’t ready. They needed to work on the crew more. Until then… they had each other. That’s what mattered.

“People are going to talk,” Adora said softly, fingers stroking up the back of Catra’s neck, half-proving Catra’s theory that Adora could read her mind. “But it will be rumor.”  _ Or she just knows you, idiot. _

“Let it be rumor. Damnit, it was rumor anyway in the Fright Zone. That wasn’t so bad.”

Adora didn’t answer her right away, pinching the back of her neck lightly, then sighed. “I guess not. I’m okay with staying out of the spotlight anyway. For a little while.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Chapter next week!


	9. Voyagers

“Glimmer?”

She didn’t look up from the view outside, a twisting green nebula in the near distance to their path that hadn’t shown up on their maps. It wasn’t a threat or of interest to Prime, so he hadn’t bothered noting it anywhere they could find.

Lit by a single star glowing so intensely hot that no planets could survive around it and sustain any kind of life, the nebula wasn’t even interesting as a target of conquest, and it wasn’t large, either, just a few light-years across. That’s what Entrapta had said about it at least when Glimmer had commented on how pretty it was.

Larger than their entire red-dwarf-dominated home.

All things that she had learned in the past months, preparing for this journey and getting a crash course in stellar cartography from Entrapta, who’d learned it from Hordak and Horde Prime’s computers.

Bow’s face appeared in the reflection on the window just over her shoulder. “Glimmer?”

“I”m fine.”  _ I wish you hadn’t come to find me. _ This was  _ her _ space. Hers and Catra’s. But Catra never came here. Not that she blamed her. This was where she’d committed to a suicidal notion of rescuing Glimmer. It almost had been just that.  _ Who would want to come back to that? _

“You’ve sat here for hours,” Bow said, his hands settling on her waist tentatively, then sliding around to clasp in front of her, holding her close. “I’m worried about what keeps drawing you here.”

“I’m fine,” she repeated more strongly and leaned forward to rest her head on the cool glass. “I’m just thinking. This is the only place on the ship no one comes to find me. It’s peaceful here.” She needed the peace after the last few days of turmoil.

Adora and Catra had grown more isolated after an incident on the troop deck nobody was saying anything about—and hiding that they  _ knew _ what it was about badly. Everybody knew something had happened, but nobody would tell her who knew what happened. Scorpia looked guiltier than a six-legged thief monkey caught in the act, but Perfuma scolded her every time Glimmer pressed.

They did everything together, Adora and Catra, and would disappear for hours at a time wandering the ship’s uncharted passageways until only Bow had an idea of where or even what deck to find them on.

Worse was her animosity towards anything involving Hordak. Even Wrong Hordak rubbed her the wrong way anymore. She  _ needed _ to be better than that, better than him and his casual dismissal of enslaving settlement after settlement.

“Catra’s going to be fine,” Bow said, clearly shooting in the dark.

“I’m not worried about her,” Glimmer murmured. “Melog follows them everywhere.”

“Now. Melog follows them everywhere  _ now _ .” Bow tightened his embrace and let his arms fall, still leaning against her. “She’s only just been able to walk at a sedate pace for a long period of time.”

“I’m surprised the two of them were able to get Melog to come up here on her own.” For the first two months, she hid that she couldn’t transform anymore with illusion, slowly draining away her magic just so she could stay with her bonded person. Then… “I’m glad they did. And I’m glad, now, they didn’t come up here before us.”

“The command center thing?” Bow asked, raising a brow.

“Yeah.” The two still avoided the command center as much as they could, though they occasionally made a show of not caring that it’d been where they’d both nearly met their dooms and Prime’s hands. It hadn’t been hard, after they learned what the chip did, to piece together the story of  _ what _ had happened, even if they were mum on what had  _ actually _ happened. Or where. “They didn’t need to face that alone and trying to care for an ailing Melog.”

“Perfuma did a good job taking care of her.” Bow took a breath and prodded at her side. “But that still doesn’t explain why you keep coming down here.”

“Damn. Thought I’d distracted you.”

“For a little. That’s not going to work either.” Bow stepped back and pulled lightly on her wrist, pulling her gaze from the distant green-tinted star and its attendant nebula to face him. “What’s really bothering you, Glimmer?”

Glimmer glowered at him. He knew her too well for her to lie to him effectively. Not that lying was a particularly helpful reaction to being asked an honest question.

She took a deep breath and slid to sit, knees to her chest, and stared at her feet and Bow’s close together. “It’s being in command. I didn’t exactly handle it well last time, and I can’t help but feel like I’m going down the same road.”

_ I miss mom. _ The thought hit her in the gut, unexpected and as certain as if she’d read it engraved in metal. Her mother wouldn’t be making a hash of command. In the end, she  _ had _ been decisive. It only took her nearly losing everything to get there.  _ And me? _ Nearly losing everything, everyone, that meant anything to her, and facing it time and again had given her some kind of clarity.

_ Is it clarity? _ It could have as easily been a delusion of clarity. Her place, for all she knew, could be back on Etheria, rebuilding Brightmoon and revitalizing the world. Not haring about in the ether, trying to spread magic just because she thought it was a good idea.

“You’re not. This is the right road, Glim. Why don’t you think it is?”

“Nobody’s telling me anything,” Glimmer muttered. “I’m supposed to be in charge of this expedition, and all I know is that  _ something _ is happening with two people in the command structure, but I don’t know  _ what _ . Not even Lonnie is saying anything, and Scorpia does her silly ‘I’m not keeping secrets’ dance before she runs away.”

“Maybe it's personal? I mean, they’re…  _ bad _ at personal stuff.” Bow chuckled and backed off to sit on the edge of the bed, hands on knees. “What can you do about it? Other than order them to talk to Perfuma.”

“I think Catra would rather jump out an airlock.” Glimmer snorted. “Without her cute helmet on.”

“You have a point.” Bow offered her a smile, then flopped back on the bed, grimacing at the hardness. “So we need to gently push her to it, right?”

“Them.” They’d not really been  _ hiding _ from everyone else, but to say they were  _ open _ would have been too generous. Not even Lonnie would say anything except that she’d seen and talked to Adora. “We can’t really get  _ them _ to do anything they don’t want to, and I get the feeling that Adora at least  _ wants _ to come out into the open, but she’s even more strongly in favor of giving Catra what she wants.”

“So work on her first. You’re closer to her anyway.” 

“But how? Sleepover?” Glimmer snorted. “This isn’t the early days anymore, Bow. We haven’t had ‘sleepovers’ since the Brightmoon was taken.”  _ I’m not sure if she’d accept it, either. Either one of them. _ “Catra’s never been on a sleepover. And it’s not like there’s  _ room _ in any of the rooms.” The clones had been very basic in what they required. Daily adorations of their immortal dictator, a small, sparse chamber with a portrait, goo dispenser, and washing up station. It  _ barely _ left room for a bed wide enough for two normal sized people.

“We could see about borrowing a flower house for a while.” Bow shrugged and pointed up at the ceiling. “Or this one.”

“No. We’re not all sleeping in here.” There was too much baggage in this room. Just having Bow there was like a record scratching across an entire song. This was  _ her _ private space, and the longer he was there, the more and more it felt like he was invading an incredibly private memory. “Let’s… take this to the observatory,” she said at last, pushing herself up and holding out a hand.

* * *

It was hard to know when Glimmer was there in the place Catra had first found her way past all the doubt and hate, but it was easy to shadow Bow without him noticing, and it was easy enough to find an excuse to sneak away from Adora for a little while.

It was harder, however, to give Melog the slip.

She’d left Adora with Entrapta to talk about the star they were approaching and the strange energy signatures that were coming from the First Ones’ ruins on the cracked world. It’d started with the pretense of exercising Melog and getting her to stretch her legs and work out… whatever she was made of so it didn’t scar.

It became clearer as she padded along behind Bow, keeping his cologne always just within sniffing distance, that Melog didn’t  _ scar _ the way they did. She had no trouble  _ walking _ . It was purely a matter of having the energy to do so. She just affected a limp when she was around others because it was the only way they could understand she wasn’t fully healed yet.

The virus fire that had burned away layers of her substance had done more than physical damage. Somehow, it had harmed the mechanism by which she regained magical power, and Etherian magic wasn’t compatible enough with her to draw it in without some kind of filter.

Something she would have to ask Entrapta about. Eventually.

She waited a distance away, half-hearing the conversation Bow and Glimmer were having about she and Adora. Sleepovers.

Catra scratched lightly under Melog’s chin, entreating the catlike creature to be silent while she waited a few more minutes to make sure that Glimmer didn’t immediately pop back in. Then she stood and, her hand brushing through the ethereal mane and stalked to the entrance of the cell.

It was empty.

“You can’t escape it either,” Catra murmured, brushing her heel against the jagged marks expressing her frustrations and regrets. Listening in had also confirmed her need to be cautious about visiting. Bow had access to the internal sensors of the ship, and so did Entrapta—but she wouldn’t care.

_ “This place isn’t good for you,” _ Melog mrowled.

“It’s not good for her either,” she said, hand hovering in the air over the place where the sensors would be listening for her motion command. There was a tension in the air there, and after a moment, she drew her hand away and went inside.

She could almost feel the month-long confinement in the air, how it must have weighed on Glimmer. What it was like on the other side, she knew well enough, and didn’t want to relive it. Melog was there, watching her from the entrance, but it was Adora that had always pulled her through, brought her back from a fugue, from wanting to hit herself, hurt herself for being such a fool for so long.

_ “What is here?” _

Catra stared outside at the green star. They’d all seen it, even though Entrapta assured them that the star wasn’t  _ really _ green. Instead, the green hue with golden highlights was caused by the high oxygen content in the gas and dust surrounding the star. Entrapta had said they were likely hydrocarbons—something that to Catra meant oil, and which Entrapta had gone on a long, overly wordy diatribe about why that wasn’t always the case. 

“Nothing,” she said after a long moment staring outside. “Nothing is here anymore, Melog.”

Melog’s heavy head pushed against her thigh.  _ “What was here?” _

“I dunno. The accumulation of all my fuckups, I guess.” Catra pulled back and sat on the bed. Familiar hardness and the Horde focus on least comfort, least cost drew her back briefly to the nights she’d spent sleeping in Adora’s bed in the Fright Zone.

Not because she didn’t have her own bed. Hers was right above Adora’s. But because sleeping at Adora’s feet meant Shadow Weaver didn’t shock her out of bed.

And because every now and then, she would buck the rules and crawl under Adora’s blanket for a while. Not hugging her, but being close to her, doing the least she could to reassure herself that Adora was still there.

“That was… a decade ago? More?” She hadn’t slept under the same blanket since training began in earnest, when the hour they would be woken up didn’t stay the same from day to day as different Force Captains took over.

_ “What was more than a decade ago?” _

“Nothing important.”

Melog set her head in Catra’s lap, her pupil-less eyes nonetheless seeming to focus on her face.  _ “It was important to you.” _

“Yeah, it was.  _ Was _ important. I don’t know when it stopped being important.”  _ We were kids. Not even teenagers yet. _ Looking back, she could see that as evil, but for her, for Adora, for all of them, it’d been life. An easier life than Catra had ever known on the streets of the Fright Zone as one of the orphans that wandered and did odd fetch and carry jobs for a ration bar. “It wasn’t an easy life, Melog, but… it was a life. She changed all that.”

_ “Adora saved you then, too?” _

“Hah! Yeah. Big damn hero. Even as a child.” Catra hunched forward, running her fingers over the smooth, not-quite-supple neck. “She just didn’t know when to stop. I… don’t think she knows now, either.”

_ “You love her.” _

“Yeah, buddy, I do.” That was half the problem with getting her to stop. “How do I tell her to rest?”

_ “I could sit on her.” _

Catra barked a laugh and ruffled the ethereal mane. “Could do that. But don’t. Unless she resists.”

_ “She will resist.” _

“Yeah, but don’t push it right away, okay?” Catra leaned back and stared up at the ceiling, then patted the bed beside her. Melog obediently, or graciously, joined her. “She needs to hear it from me first.”

Melog purred softly, threatening to start her purring as well.  _ “She listens to you. Even when she pretends she doesn’t.” _

“Well, yeah. That’s kinda how relationships work. I think. At least, that’s what Perfuma and Glimmer keep saying.” Catra mimed Glimmer’s posture as well as she could while laying down. “Talk talk talk. Talk talk. Talk.”

_ “She does not say ‘talk.’” _

“She might as well.”

Melog didn’t seem to have an answer to that and, instead, settled down to purr more.

With Bow off distracting Glimmer, and Adora busy learning more about their first destination, Catra could have a little time alone not thinking with Melog at her side.

Her traitor brain kept dragging her back to the reason she needed a little alone time. To figure out what to do with Adora’s inability to  _ relax _ . And every circle around the bush brought her back to  _ ‘She’s afraid.’ _ What she was afraid of was pretty clear. She wanted to always be there to save Catra.

“Let me save you for once, idiot.”

Melog stopped purring for a moment, then resumed, her eyes closed and something like a kitty grin shaping her ears.

* * *

“Why not there?” Bow asked doggedly as soon as they popped into the observatory, pausing only long enough to look around and make sure they were alone.

The observatory was the other place in the ship where Glimmer could go to get some time alone to reflect. It was the bubble of transparent glass—or whatever material the portholes were all made of—at the very tip of the ship, a place where Prime had kept a secondary throne to sit and watch with his naked eyes, likely pretending he was the master of the universe.

He had been, in all but fact.

It was also a place she’d been to with Bow more than once late during ship’s night, when the lights in the rooms were all turned down, and the main habitation chambers lights were changed to ‘moons mode.’ In the Observatory, the lights were always dim. The photosensitive equipment Entrapta had installed required it, but only at ships’ night were the lights ever  _ out _ .

Thoughts came more easily here, even with Bow there.

“Glimmer?”

Glimmer sighed and wandered over to one of the lounging couches they’d hauled up after the last few days before departure from Etheria. It had proved to be a popular destination then for the crew newly arrived onboard, looking for someplace to remind them of home.

“Because I spent a month there, Bow. That’s where Prime held me captive. Hostage. Prisoner. Whatever.” She picked up one of the pillows tucked against the arm, fluffed it, and folded it against her stomach. Something to hug. “It’s… a place I go when I get angry at her. Catra, I mean.”

“Why’s that? Neither of you have said much about your time… you know. Captured.” Bow dropped into the seat and rested a hand on her back as she settled down.

“There’s a reason for that,” Glimmer said, sitting slowly and hunching forward over the pillow, thankful for the warm pressure on her back, the reassurance that she wasn’t alone right then. “It’s… private, I guess. Something Catra and I shared.” She glanced aside at Bow, but neither his posture nor his expression changed at all. “It was… shared terror. I never really recovered until I was gone from there. It was always there under the surface.”

“I don’t think you’ve recovered yet,” Bow said gently. “You don’t revisit a place you were terrified just because you don’t want to get angry at Catra.”

“Maybe.” Glimmer hugged the pillow tighter. “I just know that when I go there, I don’t have to feel anything for a while. Like… I beat that. I can handle everything else.” She smiled faintly. “It helps that the nebula is there for another day or so. It’s pretty.”

Bow rubbed her back slowly. “It is pretty.”

They sat like that for a time, watching the glow of the nebula as it sat apparently unmoving between the boughs of two massive branches.amid the leaves and instruments that Entrapta and Perfuma had attached to the glass structure, unchanging and to their limited lifespans, eternal.

“And the leadership thing,” Bow said after a time, pulling his hand back to clasp hers. “You can’t do it alone. Your mother had advisors, experts, and people to delegate everything to. Like you, like the other Princess Alliance members. Netossa and Spinerella got a lot of things your mother didn’t have time to do.”

“I knew that.”

“But all you  _ saw _ was your mother doing everything.” Bow socked her shoulder lightly. “I know you. You don’t learn something until I beat it in your skull at least two or three times.”

“Alright, fair.” Glimmer chuckled. “But I learned that from her, too. She’s stubborn.”

Bow glanced at her, concern written in the set of his brows. Her choice of tense. She saw that in his eyes too. She’d only told him once months ago, tearfully. But now she was certain of it. Wherever Hordak’s portal had opened onto, her mother was there. Somewhere.

“She’s out there, Bow. Somewhere. We  _ left _ the portal. We  _ left _ Despondos. She’s out there.” Glimmer waved at the stars. “Why do you think I’ve put so much importance on finding out  _ where _ the portal went? She’s  _ out _ there, somewhere, and we need to rescue her.”

* * *

Arms made excellent structural braces, Adora was finding as she stared at the screen while Entrapta did her level best to bore some sense into her. Today’s topic was the planet they were going to first. Or, as they’d gotten light years closer, a particular section of the planet their sensors could make out with greater clarity.

Not with enough clarity to make out anything interesting, but they could make out buildings and roads, the remnants of underground sites now likely choked with lava. Or magma. Whatever it was Entrapta was calling it from one moment to the next. It was molten rock.

“...and an extremely high quantity of the materials that make up fuel crystals.” Entrapta finished, fixing Adora with a look. “Raw fuel crystal material is very dangerous.”

“And that means… we don’t step in the lava?” Adora asked, pulling herself out of boredom to try and pay more attention.

“No. Don’t step in the lava. Also, space-suits and helmets at all times. There  _ is _ an atmosphere, but it’s been poisoned by who knows how many millennia of being exposed to magma and lava—”

“Aren’t they the same thing?” Adora asked, frowning. “They’re both molten rock, right?”

“They are  _ not _ the same thing. Lava is what’s  _ above _ ground. Magma is  _ underground _ . It’s much,  _ much _ hotter underground, and that means it’s outgassing more.”

“Ohhh. That makes sense, I guess.”

“That’s not the reason we call it magma and lava, though.”

Adora stared at her, then at the images Entrapta had pulled up to illustrate her point. It was either Entrapta nonsense or there was a deeper reason she didn’t want to drag her off topic to explain. “Alright. Space-suits all the time. What are we doing that we’ll need to get close to lava?”

“Well, on the shores of the lava rivers are the best places to find the purest fuel crystals. They cool off much slower than the rest of the material, so they grow bigger than the surrounding formations.” Entrapta pulled up a detailed video showing the growth of fuel crystals. “They’ll be in geodes, like the giant one underground where you all found the fuel crystals last time, so you might need to break open a few to find what you’re looking for.”

“Or we could just bring some back?” Adora asked, twirling her finger on the table. “Wouldn’t that be easier? I mean, we’ll be able to locate what we need from a distance, right? I mean, we have better scanners than Darla did.”

“We will, but the magical energy surging through the First Ones ruins is already interfering with them.” Entrapta poked at the screen again. “I’m sure I covered that. Did I forget?”

_ Did she cover that? _ “Oh. No, I think maybe you did. Why… is there magic in the First Ones ruins? Didn’t all the magic run out… I dunno… millenia ago?”

“It should have,” Entrapta said. “In fact, most of the surface lava should have long ago cooled down, but it hasn’t. The  _ atmosphere _ should be boiling because of extended contact with the exposed core of the planet,  _ but it hasn’t!” _

“Isn’t that… good?”

“No! That’s not good because we don’t know  _ why _ it hasn’t stopped, and if we don’t know why, we could start something simply by  _ landing _ there.” Entrapta pulled up another schematic. “Look at this. If there’s some kind of atmospheric shell connecting the pieces of the planet together, and we disrupt the balance of the pieces of the shell, it could start flying apart all on its own!”

Adora cocked her head and stared at the schematic of the planet connected by glowing planes of force. “That’s… First One’s tech?”

“I don’t think so. We’d be able to read the ethereal signatures from here. All of our equipment was calibrated on Etheria, after all, and we know  _ very well _ what First Ones tech looks like from a distance.” Entrapta pulled up her tracker pad, a fusion of one of Bow’s and her own gadgets and additions bolted and welded on. “We  _ are _ getting a First One’s signal from the planet, though. Before we left, I rigged Emily with some First Ones tech.”

“You  _ what? _ ” Adora cried, jumping out of her seat and staring at the dome bot staring back at her with its triangular eye. “Entrapta… that was…”  _ It’s done, Adora. Let it go. She hasn’t destroyed anything yet. _ “Dangerous. It was dangerous.”

“All scientific progress is dangerous,” Entrapta said. “But very interesting! The signal is weak, but I think it’s a distress beacon.”

Adora glanced at the fractured planet. “Uhuh.”

“No, no, not the  _ planet _ . Planets don’t have distress beacons.  _ Ships _ have distress beacons! This is a First Ones distress beacon!”

“A… First Ones distress beacon.” Adora closed her eyes and sat back, mind swimming with potential. A First Ones starship with an active beacon. She pushed back on the hope of finding  _ some _ clue about where she’d come from. She hadn’t known for the two decades prior, so what did it matter for a few more days? “Is there any voice or video with the signal?”

Entrapta shook her head. “It’s a very simple signal. ‘Help. Help. Help.’ Well, that but in digital. It’s not very sophisticated.”

Another thought shook her. “But why didn’t Horde Prime pick it up? I mean, he was destroying everything First Ones for… who knows how long. Is it… recent? How far out are we?”

“No idea, no idea, and we are currently fifteen light years from the outer reaches of the solar system the planet is a part of.” Entrapta pulled back from the planet in the main viewscreen to show the solar system in its entirety, then further to show the track the  _ Hope _ was taking to get there. “We are here,” she said, pointing to a blip labeled ‘You are here.’ “And we’re moving at five light years per day.”

“Three days.” Adora pointed at the screen. “Can you see where the beacon is coming from? Maybe we can get an idea of what kind of ship it was.”

“We can, actually, not that it does us much good.” Entrapta fiddled and twitched the viewfinder back down to the surface, rolling back what seemed like a day as the planet rotated backwards. “It seems to be either an actual First Ones hangar or something set up using First Ones ruins as a starting point. There’s a great deal of magical energy concentrated here, but we can’t see past the outer structure.”

“What about ships? I know Glimmer was worried about other ships using it as a base of operations. Pirates and the like.”

Entrapta hummed softly for a moment, spinning the planet back and forth through days of activity. “Not that we’ve seen. Not that we’d be able to make out something so small as a ship’s flight signature this far out unless it was deliberately or incidentally aimed at us.” She scrolled back to what was apparently a real-time image of the planet. “Not that it would matter, to be honest. We’re still  _ seeing _ the planet as it was fifteen years ago.”

A chill ran down Adora’s spine. “Entrapta…  _ when _ did you first find the signal? How many light-years out were we?”

“Oh.” Entrapta’s eyes grew wider. “Oooh! Twenty light-years out. So… twenty years ago.”

“Entrapta,  _ I’m _ twenty years old. What if that’s  _ my _ ship. My parents’ ship? What if they’re still there? I mean—”  _ My parents? My actual parents? _ Her fingers shook as she ran them through her shorter hair and slumped back in her seat, trying to imagine what they might look like. What they might sound like.  _ Do they still miss me? Do they remember me? _

“Adora…” Entrapta reached out to touch her shoulder. “Mara’s ship had enough rations for one person for a year.”

“ _ Mara _ wasn’t going on an interstellar journey in the middle of a galaxy bent on destroying her!” Adroa jumped up and paced to the viewscreen, staring at the image,  _ willing  _ the image to clarify. “And you’re sure there’s no voice or image with the distress call?”

“Positive.”

The image remained obstinate, staring back at her with all the care of electronics and glass. Up close, it became clearer just how little they could see. From sitting in her seat, it was clearly a building, but up close, looking at it without scale to tell her the size of everything else, the ‘hangar’ was little more than a blob of blue and ghostly white.

“I suppose it’s  _ possible _ ,” Entrapta said after a long while, “if they were going to a new colony, that they might have everything they needed for a sustainable life elsewhere.”

Adora heard the ‘but’ before Entrapta said anything else.

“But that signal would have crossed several Prime scouter routes before ours. We know the paths their scout ships took, and we know this was… well, not exactly a fuel depot, but a stop of last resort for them,” Entrapta said, her voice low and somber. “He would have found them at best years after they landed. And it could only have been crash-landed. Nobody would go to that planet, or anywhere near it, without good reason.”

“Such as giving birth to a baby?” Adora asked, reaching up and touching the screen. “Was I  _ born _ here? Are you still alive?”

“From a practical perspective, giving birth on a ship floating in interstellar space is much, much,  _ much _ safer than trying to navigate a chaotic shifting asteroid field to land on an uneven surface surrounded by molten lava in an atmosphere that should be poison.”

They could still be there. If they were settlers, they could have set up lights like they had in the rebellion water tank, and they could grow food year-round. They’d have magic enough to keep a small part of the ruins active, maybe they’d even found a way to harness fuel crystals for magical use. Or converted the ruins to run partially on electricity and partially on magic.

“Adora,” Entrapta said softly, touching her shoulder with a warm hand instead of impersonal hair. “Don’t put too much hope into this. Every indication we have from Hordak’s research says the portal reached out much,  _ much _ further.”

“Then maybe I was taken from the ship! I don’t know, Entrapta, I was a  _ baby _ . Maybe this was as far as they could make it before they ran out of fuel. Maybe they ran into trouble with Prime Bots and lost them in the debris field.  _ Maybe _ … maybe that’s not even them.”

“Exactly,” Entrapta said more brightly. “It might not even be them. It’s more likely a pirate base, and Prime never bothered with it because… I don’t know. Maybe the debris field was too much. Or maybe that’s a place Prime sent prisoners to. Like Beast Island.”

  
  



End file.
